Secret Warriors
by Lalaith Quetzalli
Summary: -AU to Nightingale- The choices made by two people shall forever alter the lives of four, who will in turn go forth to change the rest of the world and, possibly, the universe. The Caterpillars have morphed into Butterflies and they will spread their wings and take the world in, transforming it, one mission at a time. (Rework of Avengers) (Can be Stand Alone, read notes on top).
1. Caterpillars

If you read this as a Stand Alone, all you need to know is that this takes characters from the MCU and two major OFCs, it's an AU for both my original fic and the MCU, the changes are explained in the story itself.

I don't own anything from the MCU, X-Men, Fantastic Four, or anything else you might see in this fic, aside from the Original Characters, though I certainly don't own the actresses who play them in my mind, and sometimes in fanarts.

To those who might be interested. Nightingale is played by Emily Browning, and Kathryn by Kristin Scott Thomas.

Hope you enjoy!

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Secret Warriors

(Alternative Universe to _Nightingale_ )

 _By: Lalaith Quetzalli_

 _The choices made by two people shall forever alter the lives of four, who will in turn go forth to change the rest of the world and, possibly, the universe. The Caterpillars have morphed into Butterflies and they will spread their wings and take the world in, transforming it, one mission at a time._

 **Caterpillars**

There are some decisions that can change the world, rewrite destiny.

 **xXx 3rd Person POV xXx**

High on the sky, around 30,000 feet above the North Atlantic Ocean, was located the flying fortress that was Argonaut, the main SHIELD helicarrier. A group of would-be heroes had been gathered in the bridge. They were watching a video-feed of what once had been the PEGASSUS facility in North Arizona, nothing was left but ruble. What called their attention most was learning that the majority of the damage had been in fact caused by agents… a team of agents that were walking into the room right then…

Two young women were at the front of the group, one noticeably shorter than the other (half a head, at least), they were both wearing black-tactical suits, the long-sleeved top halves unzipped just enough to reveal their sleeveless tops, one gray, one white. They were also both wearing armored tactical vests, fingerless gloves with plates on the knuckles and reinforced boots (one of them with platform), long hair in high, tight ponytails (one honey-brown, the other dark auburn), both with dark glasses covering their eyes (one chocolate brown, the other hazel). It was also noticeable that the first agent had a handgun on one side of her hip, a hunting-knife strapped to the opposite thigh and a sniper-rifle on her back; while the other had a total of half a dozen knives on different sizes strapped to various parts of her body, no guns, and a collapsible staff in the small of her back.

Practically on their heels was a slightly older man (at least in looks), he too wore a tactical suit and heavy leather boots, except with a padded jacket instead of a vest, his hair was black and looked more than a bit wild, just a bit longer than would be expected in most men, and dark glasses were hiding his emerald-green eyes. No weapons could be seen on his person, though all who'd met him at least once before knew it'd be a folly to consider him in any way defenseless just because of that.

Another man was walking at the back of the group, in a dark tactical-suit (though of a thinner cloth), showing something bulky underneath, implants or modifications of some kind. He was African-American, and aside from the bulky pieces underneath the clothes, there were pieces of armor on top of the suit (covering his chest, shoulders, forearms) as well as reinforced gloves and thick-soled boots. He too was wearing glasses, though his looked more like a visor. Those with good enough eyesight would be able to realize that a good number of those armor-pieces also carried weapons of some kind, and there was more to his visor than futuristic-looking glasses.

"Agents Johnson, report!" Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD, ordered in his strongest tone of voice.

Stark opened his mouth, one of few to have noticed the plural, when he was interrupted.

"Extraction mission: success! Sir!" The two called brightly in unison.

"As you know, PEGASSUS base in the north of Arizona is lost, sir." The shorter of the two young women began.

"Technically it was lost before, what with big, bad and fugly taking over… but we had to pretty much collapse it on our way out." The taller woman added.

"It was the only way to actually get out." The shorter finished.

"Just how do seven people take down a square mile SHIELD facility?" Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, practically demanded.

He'd seen the pictures and even the live-satellite-feed of the zone, there was nothing left except dirt, dust, and possibly a few fist-sized rocks. He knew of very few pieces of tech capable of causing destruction of that magnitude, and as far as he knew all had been 'recovered and disposed of'. It was a task he'd undertaken personally too, those pieces having been Stark Tech and all… but if someone had managed to replicate it, if SHIELD…

"I demand to know how that was done!" He insisted when no one answered his first question.

"That's classified!" Both Agents Johnson called at the same time.

"Just who are you ladies?" Captain Steve Rogers, the Captain America, trying to sound polite and instead managing to sound patronizing.

"Agents Johnson." The two girls answered in synch.

"And your first names are…" Stark practically hissed.

There was something about them, all of them, but especially the two young women, that just rubbed him the wrong way.

"Need to know." The shorter stated calmly.

"And you simply don't need to know." The taller went on.

"What if I only want to call for one of you?" Rogers inquired, confused.

The two turned to look at each other before scoffing.

"Assuming you had a reason for talking to us…"

"… really talking and not just trying to chastise us for what we did in a mission…"

"…which, as has been stated already, was necessary not just for the success of the mission but, on the most basic level, for our own survival."

"If you still needed to talk to us about something else…"

"…you still wouldn't need to know our first names."

It was well known around SHIELD that the Johnson sisters were hardly apart. At least where it came to the organization and the missions they were sent on, wherever one was, the other was likely to be close. They'd been partners from their very first mission, even before becoming leaders of their special team.

"I assume all assets have been recovered then?" Fury went on, ignoring Stark.

"That is correct." The shorter woman nodded.

"We've checked them over and they're both safe, sound and free of anything that may prove risky for themselves or anyone else in the helicarrier." The taller woman went on.

"Nonetheless, Agent May and the twins took both of them to the Infirmary, for a full check-up." The shorter agent offered. "They will be led to temporary accommodations afterwards."

"Very well go eat, rest, I will expect a full written report by tomorrow, and anything else you might consider relevant." Fury informed them.

"Yes sir!" The two called brightly.

Nick just waved his hand in dismissal and the team of four left, much like they'd arrived. And yet Rogers still felt there was something off about them. As for Stark… he'd already decided he'd be finding out who they all were.

 **xXx**

The second meeting between the Johnson sisters' team and the would-be Avengers Initiative didn't go any better than the first. In fact, it was worse. And it all started (as some probably expected already) because of Stark.

"The Caterpillars? Really?" The self-addressed genius/billionaire/playboy/philanthropist asked with a mock grin. "That name is even more ridiculous than Avengers!"

"Did you honestly try to hack into our files, Stark?" The tall, honey-haired agent inquired in a dangerous tone (which Stark either didn't notice, or chose to ignore).

"Try?" Stark scoffed. "Seeing how I know your secret-name, one would think I succeeded, wouldn't you?"

"Tell me Stark, what else did you find out?" The honey-haired asked in a drawl.

Her sister wasn't interfering in that moment, unlike their first meeting. Of course, what the Avengers didn't know was that their twin-speech was nothing more than an act used mostly to unnerve others (especially people they were testing… and the would-be heroes had failed fantastically).

"Did you find our names?" The agent asked in a sing-song voice.

Tony's gritted teeth were answer enough… as well as the fact that he hadn't used the girls' names to taunt them.

"No, you didn't find our names, or our codenames." The taller Johnson stated calmly. "I'm quite sure you found nothing except our surnames, the name of our team, and the position each of us occupies, and that's if you were extremely lucky."

"Johnson and Johnson, team leaders; Serrure, second in command; Peterson, third; May, Parker, Stacy and the two Maximoffs are probably just the minions." Stark stated.

There were several scoffs around, though no one volunteered any additional information. Truth be told, most of those present in the bridge in that moment were rather enjoying seeing Stark so vexed, especially by one of the Johnsons.

"I will find more." Stark said in what was probably supposed to be a threatening tone, though sounded more like whining.

"No, you won't." The tall Johnson was really enjoying the exchange. "I know you won't. And you know how I know that?"

"You cannot know that!" Stark practically spat. "I'm one of the best hackers in the world!"

"And that's precisely why!" The other answered brightly. "You're One of the best hackers in the world, I think you might be the third, in fact, wanna bet who's above you?"

"You can't be number one!" Stark scoffed. "There's no way you're TaserQueen."

"No, I'm not." The other admitted with a shrug, choosing not to tell him that she knew the TaserQueen, quite well. "I'm actually BlueCloud."

"BlueCloud…" Stark repeated, unable to hide his shock. "You're the number two hacker in the world?! And you work for SHIELD?!"

As far as he was concerned, something had to be very, very wrong with the world if one of the best hackers ever known worked for the government (if he only knew it was actually both of the top two… but among all the things Tony Stark really didn't need to know, Darcy Lewis-Coulson, her name, identity, abilities and the like, the young woman as a whole was very near the top of the –long- list).

"Yes…" The agent/hacker drawled. "But that's not the point. The point is, I personally encrypted all of my team's files. Left a few things out, of course, for people like you to find. Small things, unimportant… Because really, you knowing the name of our team, or our surnames, it changes nothing. But that's all you will ever find out about us, unless we decide to give you more… and right now I don't see why I should."

"Some things I don't need to hack." Stark retorted, voice getting cold. "I can see the implants on Peterson's back." He no longer had his armor. "What was it? Extremis?"

"Centipede actually." Peterson volunteered from a side. "Not like it's any of your business."

"After the mess with Killian, AIM and Extremis I was told it was over, that that… thing was gone and there was nothing to worry about. And now you tell me there's a freaking super-soldier?!" Stark practically roared. "I mean, I know your people have always been obsessed with replicating Captain fucking America, but this is ridiculous! You do remember what happened to all of those who had extremis, right?!"

It looked like quite a few people were about to go for Stark's throat, not least the Johnson sisters themselves. But Peterson was faster, and his voice louder and stronger.

"It wasn't SHIELD." He stated, and that was enough to make everyone pay attention. "SHIELD didn't make me into this, Stark. Though, that may not be fully correct. Simply told, if it weren't for them I wouldn't even be here right now." He shrugged. "Four years ago I was a construction worker in L.A., I had an accident while on the job, and while the insurance paid for my surgery and the PT, there was nothing that could be done for the chronic pain I was left with. There was also nothing that could be done when my boss hired someone else to fill my position when I wasn't ready to return right away. So I lost my job, the only source of income I had, for myself and my son. We were going to end up on the streets!" He took a deep breath. "I was almost at the end of my rope when I was approached by a woman, right after one of my appointments. She told me she represented a private project, one that could help me end the pain, and allow me to make a new future for myself. They would also pay me, and I really needed the money, so I accepted." He let out a breath. "A month later I was learning to use the enhanced strength and speed the Centipede implant granted me, when it all went to hell. The other test subject blew up! Literally! I happened to be around and saved our doctor, though I'm not quite sure it was worth it."

"Wait a second." Stark cut him off abruptly. "You're the hooded hero?!"

"That I am." Peterson nodded. "Though nowadays, in the field, I just go by Cyborg." He shook his head. "What you seem to still not be getting, Mr. Stark, is that SHIELD did not make me this. Centipede did. The Johnson sisters saved my life…"

"And then they recruited you?" Banner guessed, he was still feeling uncomfortable about the way he'd been 'persuaded' to join.

"No." Peterson shook his head. "They saved my life, first from the experiment that would have killed me, just like it had already killed the other volunteer. They offered me protection, for both me and my boy. A new life… I chose instead to join their team, to use what was done to me, what Centipede gave me, to take them down, to make sure no one else would suffer."

No one was quite expecting that. The sincerity in every word was enough to make a lot of people reconsider what they'd been thinking about the Johnson sisters and their team; though Stark still refused to concede.

"And you became a happy team, went around saving the world…" He said in a drawl. "Sounds a bit too fantastic to me."

"You mean like a careless playboy, the Merchant of Death, turning into an environmentalist and, some might say, a hero?" It was the first time the shorter Johnson agent had spoken during that meeting, and everyone turned to look at her.

Stark didn't seem to know what to say to that.

"So what, you're heroes then?" Banner asked, seemingly not convinced.

"We help the people that need to be helped, the label of hero is something others care about, not us." The smaller Johnson said with a shrug. "Our actions won't change, no matter what the public thinks about them."

"So, lets say w… I believe all that spiel… which I don't." Stark said snarkily. "Why Caterpillars? I mean really, it's absolutely ridiculous! Truly and…"

The taller Johnson agent was practically shaking in anger in that moment, but right as she opened her mouth to say something (probably sharp and biting), there was a sound like a shrill whistle that broke through the air. A moment later she was fisting her hands almost convulsively even as she stormed out of the bridge, Peterson on her heels.

"Oh please…" Stark called loudly as she turned to the remaining Johnson sister. "You cannot tell me she took offense to that? I'm just saying the truth!"

"So you shouldn't be offended if I say that for most of your life you were little more than a waste of space, living the great life thanks to the blood-money made out of the lives your creations destroyed?" She practically snarled.

Silence was absolute after that. No one knew what to say. That'd been below the belt, and they all knew it, even Johnson knew it. But Stark had just made her so angry… she always got violent (whether physically or verbally) whenever someone attacked those she loved.

"Let me tell you something Stark." Johnson went on. "What you did a minute ago? It wasn't just an innocent joke. You were mocking the Caterpillars, our team. You were mocking who we are. My sister and I, we've been agents for years, and while at first it was just the two of us, it didn't stay that way. We're a team, we're the Caterpillars. We created that team, it's who we are, part of our identity. So you effectively insulted us and every single member of our team." She made a pause before adding, for good measure. "If you think my reaction was harsh, that using a few words to knock you down a bit… then you have no idea what some of the other members of our team… of our family, would have done to you."

No one knew quite what to say to that.

"I have something else to say." A quiet but strong voice called.

Everyone turned in the direction instantly. It was a woman, probably in her mid-twenties, with wavy auburn hair to the middle of her back and green eyes dressed in a ¾ sleeve top, skirt, tight-leggings and boots, all in black, along with a red shawl resting around her elbows and her back. Her eyes flashed red just for an instant as she looked straight at Stark.

"Let me tell you all a little story." Even as she spoke to everyone, her eyes remained fixed on the genius. "Me and my twin brother, we were born and raised in Sokovia. A simple, little country. Not important at all except for being on the way to everywhere that is important. We weren't rich, but we weren't poor either. And while Sokovia was in a constant state of unrest, nearly on the edge of a civil war, we were alright, even happy." She stiffened. "Until the day a bomb fell through the roof of our apartment and straight onto our parents, killing them instantly. My brother took me and pulled both of us underneath the table, where we laid, waiting. A second shell fell through the roof, only it didn't go off." She took a deep breath through the knot in her throat, her accent-less English giving way to her old, Sokovian one. "Have you any idea what it was like? We laid on that floor for two days. With the corpses of our parents on one side and the bomb on the other. We could hear the rescue teams working on getting the survivors out; knowing that at any moment something they did, or even a shaking of the building could activate the shell, blowing us all up. I will never forget what was written on the side of that explosive, wanna guess what it said Stark?"

"Stark Industries…" The billionaire breathed out, closing his eyes tight.

"Stark Industries." The Maximoff girl repeated accusingly. "So, what gives you the right to mock us? To mock our team? To mock the origins of one or more of us. If there's anyone who doesn't belong here, among people doing good, protecting… that's you."

No one knew what to say to that.

She didn't go into any further detail, didn't even consider explaining how she and her brother had come to be in America, to be part of SHIELD and the Caterpillar team when they'd been born all the way in Sokovia. She didn't care for them knowing such things. She didn't give anyone, and especially not Stark, a chance to reply either, leaving the bridge before a single word could be said. Truth was that for the longest time the twins had wanted vengeance on the man they saw as responsible for the death of their parents. Things had changed a little in recent years, thanks to the Johnson sisters and the team as a whole. It had especially helped when one of the Johnsons hacked into SI and found out about the illegal deals Stane had done with terrorist organizations. Made them accept the fact that it might not be all Stark's fault. And yet, they didn't like the man, it was unlikely they ever would.

"While I completely agree with everything she just said, I have something more to add." Agent Serrure, with a hand on her arm all along, added. "Tell me Stark, what are caterpillars exactly?"

"Worms." Stark answered with a shrug. "Insects."

"Wrong." Serrure contradicted calmly. "Caterpillars are infants, children, who one day, when they're ready, shall become butterflies."

Stark snorted at that, and even some of the others were looking at the SIC in disbelief.

"Alright, imagine there's a caterpillar in front of you." He waved a hand dismissively at Stark's expression of disbelief. "Just imagine it. Now imagine you go blind." Stark made to interrupt and Serrure shut him up with a glare. "Don't argue, just imagine it. Now, how would you know if before you there's still a caterpillar or if it's changed into a butterfly? If you cannot see, how can you know what is truly before you?"

"But I'm not blind." Stark finally managed to get a word in.

Serrure rolled his eyes, the man wasn't getting it!

"You might as well be." He said simply.

They left the room then, both focusing on the other Johnson sister, wanting to make sure she was alright, there were several yards away when they managed to hear a voice, most probably Stark's (trying to get the last word).

"Hey! Just what kind of glassware do you keep onboard Fury, this glass is cracked!"

 **xXx Nightingale's POV xXx**

It was easy to track down my sister. Really, we'd been able to find our way to each other for a long time… and finding her all the way to some top-secret Southern Chinese hide-out (from an enemy base in the Arctic, north of Russia) had been much harder than walking from the bridge to our personal meeting room. With the Argonaut being pretty much SHIELD's flagship (or flag-helicarrier), measures had been taken to make sure we Caterpillars had a room all for ourselves. We also had one in three of the most important SHIELD bases: the Triskellion, the Cube and the Playground (not in the Hub, as Agent Hand, the one in charge there, really didn't like us… didn't like anyone gifted, period).

"I cannot believe I lost control back there." My little sister (by all of five months) was saying with a grumble. "That hadn't happened to me in years!"

"Cracking a glass doesn't count as losing control." I quipped as my love and I stepped into the room. "If I'd given into my own impulses I would have thrown it straight across the room, which would have been much worse."

"I would just have thrown Stark." My match scoffed.

My sister snorted and suddenly all three of us were laughing. It made me happy. Knowing that regardless of how tense the situation might be with the so-called Avengers Initiative, we were still alright, still happy, that was important to me.

I could still remember how my little family had come to be:

 _I was born Silbhé Arianna Kinross Salani and it all started with the death of my father, when I was three. Perhaps it would be right to say it'd all started with the death of my mother in Early-Spring. She'd had Cancer, it was detected too late to do anything except make her comfortable. All I really remembered of her were whispered endearments and soft lullabies, sometimes in English and sometimes in Gaelic. Then, in Autumn, my father too was gone. As my aunt explained it, a co-worker of his had recommended some pills that would help him give more energy (apparently he'd been nodding off in the job and the boss threatened with firing him), not knowing my father was already taking some pretty heavy anti-depressants. The combination had caused a massive organ failure, and thus death._

 _And that was where everything had changed for me. By the end of the year I was adopted by my aunt Kathryn and her husband who, to a very important and top-secret section of the world were better known as Agent Kathryn Adler, the Sphinx, and Agent Nicholas Fury, the Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention and Logistics Division (SHIELD, for short)._

 _The biggest change in my life, however, came early the following year, when I met Mary Sue Poots. A foster-girl my aunt took home, apparently SHIELD had saved her after some great tragedy happened in China, they hid her in the foster system, afraid that someone might come after her; but upon meeting her Mama Kathryn had decided that such was no life for a little girl (being moved around every two or three months, never able to have a stable life), so she brought her to our home in Portland, Maine._

 _Months later a doctor finally explained to my adoptive parents why I was so sick all the time: I too had Cancer, leukemia to be precise. They put me on treatment immediately, and the hopes were high. Mary thought we would send her away though, for some reason she believed Mama and Papa wouldn't want her around anymore… I refused to accept that. She was my little sister, I loved her, and no one was taking her away from me._

 _When the adoption went through, Mary decided that since it was a new life, it deserved a new name, and so Skye Kinross Salani came to be._

 _It took five years, but I finally went into remission when I was nine. A year later Skye and I began training, we wanted to be agents, just like our parents._

 _I knew that our lives were probably considered odd by most people. We didn't have much of a social life, not the way normal people did. Both Skye and I were home-schooled by Mama, which was good, as it allowed us to progress much faster than we would have in a normal school (and to avoid having to explain what our parents did for a living and the like to classmates and teachers). Even in SHIELD, few people knew about us; only those our parents trusted completely, which was quite rare. It was dangerous, being the daughters of the Director of SHIELD and one of the best Agents in history; but we'd never regretted it._

 _The next big event in my life happened the following year, shortly after my eleventh birthday, when a boy appeared out of thin air, in the middle of my rose-garden, in the backyard of Salani Mansion in Maine. He tried to feed me some bull-story, but one needed only to look into his eyes to know he was no child… not human either. As it turned out he was Loki Friggson (back then he was still using the name Odin, but that changed) of Asgard, God of Mischief, Lies and Magic (and with many other titles like Silvertongue, Liesmith, Sky-Treader, Shadow-Walker, etc.). We became friends, he gifted me the dizi (Chinese transversal flute) that would become my favored instrument for the rest of my life, after I told him how much I loved nightingales. It was also how he began calling me that: Nightingale._

 _I convinced him to meet my sister on his third visit and she promised to keep the secrets from our parents. As great as they were, the two of us were used to being on our own a lot of the time, neither of us trusted anyone more than the other. It was perfect._

 _I'm not sure when I realized Loki was my match, it might have been from the first moment I laid eyes on him. However, a children's idea of absolute, unconditional love is very different from that of an adult. At eleven I grew close to him, loved him like a brother, like I loved my sister, for I knew no stronger love than that one. But as I grew into my teens, that changed, not the absolute, unconditional parts, no; it just gained new dimensions, as I came to see him as more, as a man, as the man I wanted to send the rest of my life with…_

 _There were some bumps, of course, particularly when the cancer returned and, after refusing the stronger treatments (the last thing I wanted was to spend what time I had left, on a bed, too sick to enjoy my time and my family, particularly since there was no hope of curing me), I was told I had three months to live. Of course, those who said that never counted on my sister, who put the internet upside down finding out anything that might be useful to give me more time (she got in some trouble, hacking the databases of a few laboratories, but my parents never really tried to stop her, they knew why she was doing it); or a sorcerer and almost-god of another realm using all his power to create an artifact that had only been part of science-fiction until then._

 _The deamarkonian saved my life, by tying my life-force to that of Loki. His energy fighting off the sickness in me, enough at least to allow me to continue living and to regain health. It didn't erase the leukemia, nothing could really do that. There were also some side-effects, like picking up on each other's emotions, phantom-sensations when something happened to the other, and knowing that if one of us were to be killed, we would both die._

 _Our parents didn't know how I survived, and since the deamarkonian was spelled to be invisible unless I willed it otherwise, they didn't know about it. Skye kept the secret too, knowing Papa Nicholas might not react nicely if (when) he found out about Loki's existence._

 _In any case, life went on. Skye and I had finished up to high-school in our studies by then and we enrolled into Norwich University (we decided we actually wanted to go to college, it would be a change of pace, if nothing else)._

 _We were sixteen when we graduated college (with two undergraduate degrees each), it was also at that point that we finished SHIELD training, ready to be agents… and the Papa Nicholas said no. He downright refused to give us our badges and induct us into the organization, believing us to be too young. A part of us knew he was just trying to protect us, that he loved us and was afraid something might happen to us; at the same time we had tried so hard for so long, we did not appreciate being blocked like that. We weren't the usual whiny teenagers who would wail and kick up a storm as part of their temper tantrum; no, we chose a different route._

 _It was quite easy to have our parents believe that we were taking off on an unplanned road-trip, leading them to believe it was our way to cool off, our version of a tantrum. The truth was very different. Skye had hacked into SHIELD, pulling several files of a classified cold-case. Our real plan: to solve it, to prove we were ready to be agents… didn't exactly work out that way, but still, cannot really regret it either._

 _It wasn't just any case that we chose, but the very one that had lead to Skye becoming my sister. At first things were great, and we had a lot of fun. We tracked down Richard Lumley, the only remaining living agents from the group that had been tasked with getting the 084 in China. We weren't expecting for Skye to have been the 084 (we thought it might have been some kind of family heirloom or something). We went to China, where we learnt all the stories about the 'monsters' that had razed the Hunan Province to the ground, searching for a baby. There were all kinds of theories surrounding that event: from those who believed the baby to have been their own child (a prospect too scary for either of us to truly contemplate, then or ever), to those who stated that it'd been some child of prophecy destined to save the world (and wasn't that the worst kind of cliché ever?)._

 _Right as we believed we might have hit a dead end we met her: Raina. The girl was about the same age as us, maybe a year older, and completely obsessed with gifted individuals. She claimed to be an angel, she just needed the right push for her power to manifest. And at some point she got it into her way that we, or at least Skye, were her ticket to that power._

 _It would be hard to tell how it happened, exactly, but at some point we all ended in a hidden, subterranean cave in Puerto Rico, standing in the middle of a sealed-off ancient alien temple, at the time an alien device known as a Diviner, went off._

 _I only truly remember one thing of that day, that moment: pain, Beyond anything I'd ever felt before in my life, it was almost as if my own body were slowly being ripped to pieces, as if some kind of force tried to pull my body apart from its very atoms… only, in the last moment, that did not happen, instead some kind of energy filled me, taking over me, all of me, pushing the alien energy out abruptly. At the same time some kind of cocoon made of the earth itself covered both my sister and the girl we knew nothing about except that it was her fault we were there at all. Then darkness finally took me._

 _The first thing I realized when I woke up was that we were no longer in the temple, the second was that I was actually in some kind of bed, and by the stiffness in my body I could deduce I'd been unconscious for quite a while (three days, as I found out later)._

 _Skye went to see me later on, and explained what had happened. How some guy named Gordon had appeared out of nowhere (he could teleport) and had taken all three of us straight there, to some secret hideout called Afterlife. And that wasn't all, apparently all the people who lived there belonged to the same lineage and a few had active gifts, they called themselves Inhumans… they were lead by a woman called Jiaying, who happened to be Skye's birthmother._

 _That whole week was an absolute mess. I wasn't at a 100% just yet, which was why I didn't really notice at first how everyone in that place kept trying so hard to keep me away from Skye. I was too weak to go looking for her, and whenever I asked I would be told she was training her powers, learning more about her people, spending time with her parents. Because, as it turned out, her birth-father too was alive, he was more-than-half insane and a murderer (he'd been one of the monsters in the stories we'd found), but most definitely alive. Apparently he'd been looking for Skye all along (though he kept insisting her name was Daisy), and went as far as killing everyone who got in his way._

 _Things only got more complicated when I began displaying powers, mostly illusions, and short distance teleportation (I call it jumping). Some would ask if I too was Inhuman, though no one had been able to connect me to any of their known lineages._

 _A week after our arrival to Afterlife I was finally strong enough to stop asking questions and go out myself. Raina met me just outside the house and gave me a warning that has stayed with me ever since:_

" _A Flower is beautiful, graceful, it can even be powerful, but it will always need Thorns to protect it of those who might envy its beauty and grace, might wish its power for themselves."_

 _I didn't understand what she meant at first, didn't fully comprehend everything until much later. The way my sister was the flower, and Raina considered herself the protector (an angel, a guardian and messenger wrapped in one… which fit in a way, considering the way her body was covered in thorns since the terrigenesis and her power was to see the future); and apparently I had placed myself in the same position from the moment I first called her sister…_

 _As it turned out Raina's words weren't just a warning for some distant future, but for that very moment. Something I found out when instead of finding Skye, I found her father and he tried to kill me. My sister found us just in time (Raina'd gone to warn her too). She denounced her parents, claiming me as her only family, then she screamed her desire for us to go home and a mix of words I did not recognize for a moment, not until I realized she was talking in ancient Norse. A moment later Loki was there, he got us out of Afterlife and straight back to our home (and to our waiting parents)._

 _To say that Papa Nicholas blew a gasket would be to put it lightly. He was furious, both with us and with the Inhumans in general. Mama Kathryn just muttered about how they should have known we wouldn't give up so easily. Shocked as they were by Loki's appearance and the explanation of just who he was and his connection to us (but especially to me), they all focused more on Skye's birth parents and the rest of the Inhumans (It is also my belief that our parents were too grateful to Loki for saving my life to have any negative reaction to him, regardless of how pessimistic and paranoid Papa tended to be)._

 _Much as it cost us to admit, Skye and I had to accept we were nowhere near attaining control of our abilities. So our parents decided to send us to a safe location known as the Retreat. The place was solid and strong enough to withstand even the Hulk, had sensors, fences and other security measures to keep possible hostiles out, and wasn't in any records anywhere. In fact, only Papa Nicholas, Mama Kathryn and their protégés (Phil Coulson, Maria Hill and Melinda May) even knew the place existed at all. Loki also added magical wards to make sure no one would be able to see into it or track us there. It was perfect to lay low, and also to learn to use our powers._

 _Loki was our main trainer when it came to using our new abilities. Even if what Skye could do was nothing like his own, he taught her meditation, focus and other quite useful things. He also realized that my power did not come from any hidden-alien-DNA, but was rather a side-effect of the deamarkonian fighting off the effects of the Terrigen-mist, which would have killed me otherwise (hence the pain). In other words, it was his magic I was channeling._

 _Months passed. We trained our powers and our bodies too, we still wanted to be agents when it was all said and done; took online classes for our graduate degrees and read on all the books Loki got us where there was the slightest mention of the Diviner, the terrigen crystals, the Inhumans… from which we branched into the Kree, alien races in general, the Nine Realms, etc. (It seemed prudent, in case something ever happened). Our parents didn't like there being so many risks, so many possibilities, but Skye and I trusted we could take things as they came._

 _Of course we didn't actually expect what ended coming our way…_

 _When we first answered the phone to hear Raina and the other hand we couldn't help but hang up automatically. The second-call was more productive. Apparently her power meant she knew where we were, had known all along, and hadn't shared that information. No one even knew she could find us; especially since Gordon (the teleport with a built-in Inhuman detector) had tried and failed for months. The reason she'd called us though, was that Lincoln Campbell, a young new inhuman our same age, with the ability to create and manipulate energy, had been captured by some crazy-scientist-type while jumping around with Gordon to try and find us. Gordon had managed to escape, Lincoln hadn't been so lucky. The worst part was that Jiaying had forbidden him or anyone else from going after him; which meant no one was rescuing the teen._

 _Our decision was made in an instant, we didn't even need to consult it among ourselves. We simply weren't the kind to leave someone in need, alone. A handful of minutes after leaving the Retreat Gordon was there. Skye somehow managed to talk him into taking us to the Arctic, where we stormed what turned out to be a secret hideout of a wannabe-Hydra group. Lead by a man called Whitehall who apparently had had a different name in the past, back during WWII, he'd aged, only to then find Inhumans, had experimented on them until eventually finding one that had allowed him to rejuvenate himself, at the cost of the Inhuman's life… that Inhuman had been Jiaying. She'd been dead, only Cal (her husband) had somehow managed to heal her enough for her powers to kick in, heal her fully, at the cost of the lives of hundreds of people in the Hunan Province. Also, while she might have returned, it was quite obvious Jiaying hadn't come back quite right. She was obsessed with getting her daughter back, the daughter that had been stolen from her… except Skye didn't really fit the mold of the daughter the Inhuman elder expected to have. Not the least because she would rather be part of our family than theirs._

 _Whitehall wasn't expecting the rescue party, and certainly not for all of us to be gifted. I wasn't quite ready to fight others directly, but had gotten good enough at illusions it was relatively easy to make most people in the base turn against each other, making them believe they were shooting at enemies rather than their own colleagues. It made me sick, so much death, but I had already made up my mind, they needed to die for us to be safe, and that was that._

 _Things were more complicated with Whitehall, he used Lincoln as a hostage to keep us from using our powers against him. Then I did the one thing I never wanted to do and came to regret. I teleported across the room to get Lincoln, hoping to be fast enough to get him before Whitehall could move; what I wasn't expecting was for Gordon to use that moment to take hold of Skye and high-tail it out of there!_

 _I was so shocked by what had just happened I wasn't as alert as I ought to. Thankfully Lincoln was. He reacted just in time to shoot a bolt of lightning at Whitehall, strong enough he vaporized the bullets that had just been fired at us and then went on to fry the wannabe-Hydra-scientist too. Jiaying's organs might have allowed him to rejuvenate himself once, and slow his aging, but he wasn't truly immortal (even Jiaying wasn't, she needed the life-force of others to fuel her own powers, her healing and youth)._

 _We arrived to Afterlife (having shadow-walked for the first time, a power I didn't know I could use, but apparently my desire, my need to be with my sister had been strong enough for the metaphorical switch to flip) in time to hear Jiaying spinning some story about Skye 'valiantly attempting to rescue Lincoln' only to fail and 'surviving against all odds'. The woman obviously wasn't expecting that and she let her anger control her as she moved to attack me._

 _Skye, who was being kept restrained by her father, used her powers to free herself and rushed to my side, defending me. Then Lincoln stepped forward to tell the real story, let everyone in Afterlife know just how little Jiaying truly cared about the lives of her people. All hell broke lose then. Lines were drawn and a fight broke out._

 _It was awful. In my life, particularly since becoming an Agent, I've been involved in many fights, bloody, brutal, even deadly. Yet none of them ever marked as much as that one. The first time we killed… For it was my sister who killed Gordon, crushing him through the vibrations to prevent him from going after me. The Jiaying turned to her, intending to absorb her own daughter's life-force… I stepped in between them, didn't even think about it, just did it. What none of us could have truly expected was what actually happened when she tried to use her gift on me. My life-force was already bound to Loki's, and there was no place for another in that bond; also, Loki's magic defended me, it was an instinct. It was one that ended costing Jiaying her life._

 _It took considerable effort, but eventually Lincoln and Raina managed to make the Inhumans stop fighting, right about the same time Loki appeared. He had the answer we'd been waiting for: for why Jiaying had become so cold, so cruel… she was soulless. Cal might have been able to 'put her back together', and her power had saved her, but she had effectively died, her soul had left, and it hadn't come back. Because of the tragic way in which Jiaying had died, all that was left in her were: the need for her family (no love, as a soul was needed to process such emotions), which was why she'd continued with Cal, and why she'd been so obsessed with getting 'Daisy' back; and then there'd been her fear and horror at her own death, which made her want Whitehall dead, and then got twisted into wanting everyone who might represent a threat to her little family dead too (hence why she wanted me dead, and our parents, and SHIELD…)_

 _Cal died that day too. The insane formula that gave him power also destroyed his body, and he'd been abusing it. There was nothing any of us could do. Though we stayed by his side until he drew his last breath. We forgave him, something that seemed to give him peace. The last thing he said was his daughter's birth-name: Daisy Johnson… Skye would later decide to honor the man and her own origins by taking Daisy as a middle-name._

 _Our parents were already at the Retreat when we went back. Apparently everyone had heard about the death of the wannabe-Hydra and all his followers. It was impossible to cover it up. Every single agent and team that was strong enough others would believe they'd done it had been busy with other ops., so there was no easy way out, we'd have to take responsibility for our actions. I knew our parents still wanted to protect us, didn't want us to feel like SHIELD was our only choice, like it seemed to be for them. I made a sudden decision, suggesting to use a different surname while we were acting as agents… there was one obvious choice, and so Arianna and Daisy Johnson came to be._

 _We began as a top-secret duo under the direct orders of Director Fury, which helped keep others from finding out the truth about us (about our true identities, and our gifts), though Loki would join us for a mission whenever he was able to get away from Asgard for a while. We mostly served as back-up to some black-ops team (particularly those that tended to have no extraction, whenever one of their missions went really wrong), and as liaison whenever SHIELD had to work with other gifted, like the X-Men, the Fantastic Four (though they were mostly retired), and of course the Inhumans (Raina and Lincoln had been chosen as the new leaders)._

 _It went on like that for near on two years, when one particular mission ended with a request to join our team… and it was then that we stopped being just a duo and became truly a team… we became the Caterpillars._

"So, what's the plan then?" Another voice asked right about then.

I raised my head, taking a moment to watch each member of my team: my sister, Skye Daisy Kinross-Salani, Daisy Johnson, Quake; my match, Loki, Luka Serrure Hvedrungr, Maverick; Mike Peterson, Cyborg; Melinda May, Cavalry; and the twins: Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. We weren't quite all the members of the Caterpillars, but when Peter Parker (Spiderman) and his fiancé, Gwen Stacy, had signed in we'd been very clear that they wouldn't be joining us on any missions until they were finished with school, they had a year to go yet. Aside from that we worked pretty well with a number of field-agents and a couple of scientists known as FitzSimmons, though none of them were with us.

"Right now, we wait." I admitted after a few seconds.

"I hate waiting." Pietro snorted. "It's boring, makes the world seem so much slower…"

"Yeah, well, we cannot exactly kick alien-asses until we know where the aliens are." Melinda reminded him with a roll of her eyes.

Pietro pouted, something that caused all of us, even (specially) his sister to chuckle. It was truly amazing how childish Pietro could be most of the time; and yet on the battlefield he was always focused on the task, even when he did joke on the comms and such, he wasn't the kind to make mistakes or get distracted.

For me it was especially a wonder, with the kind of life he and Wanda had had, after the death of their parents, having to live on the streets, and especially with everything that had happened to them while Von Strucker used them ('recruiting' them under the promise of helping them, of giving them power to make justice for their family, only to then pretty much turn them into lab-rats). It was a wonder that they could still be happy and carefree, Pietro more so than Wanda, but still. I would never stop thanking the mistake/accident that brought us to that castle in the outskirts of Sokovia that day. Most people in SHIELD had been so sure there was nothing there and the place had seemed abandoned at first sight, but we just wanted to be sure… if we hadn't been so insistent we probably would have never found Von Strucker and his minions, but more importantly, we might have never found the twins.

"You do realize Thor is coming." Loki spoke up right then, it wasn't a question. "It's also likely he won't be coming alone."

We all nodded.

"We've known all along this would be happening some day." I reminded him.

"We're a team." Skye added. "We stand together, against anything and anyone."

She didn't need to be any more explicit, we all understood what she meant, if the Asgardians tried anything, they would have to get through us to reach Loki. And that wouldn't be an easy thing to do. Most of the world didn't know what we could do, even in SHIELD very few had seen us in action (part of being Fury's top-secret team, everyone had seen us, had heard our 'names', but only those we'd helped at one point or another had seen what we could do… and even then no one outside the team and family knew everything we were capable of).

"Have precautions been taken?" Melinda asked seriously.

"Professor Xavier, Dr. Richards, Raina, and the leaders of the three magical covens in the States have all been warned that a situation is brewing, Peter too knows something is likely to happen at any moment and will be informing us if he notices anything strange. Same goes for the others." I told her calmly. "If there's a way to predict something like an alien attack you can be sure Raina, Muse or Destiny will let us know the moment they do."

"So we wait." Mike said, letting out a breath.

"We wait." We all agreed.

Pietro was right, having to wait was boring, and stressful… but there was little else we could do in the time being. It was likely that once things got into motion we would be wishing for the peace and quiet of that moment.

I wasn't wrong.

 **xXx**

The meeting with the Asgardians was rather anti-climatic. Mostly because none of them actually recognized Loki (whom everyone was calling Serrure). It was as if without his usual green-silk, black-leather, golden-armor ensemble they couldn't recognize him; which I found absolutely ridiculous. Magic was being used, of course, and while I might allow that to justify the blindness in most of them; I couldn't believe that a man who'd called my beloved match brother for the last too-many-years wouldn't know him simply because he had longer hair, was wearing earth-clothes, and dark glasses. It just didn't seem possible, Skye and I'd always been capable of recognizing each other, even without the sort-of magical connection we shared. Even the time when we'd been undercover and had arrived separately (and completely disguised) we had no trouble knowing who the other was.

And on the topic of disguises and undercover ops, there had been a rather memorable one, when I'd actually dressed-up as a man (because I had to infiltrate a sect that wouldn't have treated me right had they seen me as female); and when everything was about to go to hell I received back-up in the form of a female-shapeshifted Loki… yep, that had been certainly an unforgettable mission (and its aftermath…).

Once introductions had been made, Director Fury decided it was time to have a meeting and discuss the situation. Which meant the would-be Avengers, several SHIELD Agents and us Caterpillars would all be on the same table, at the same time… I knew that was going to be one hell of a meeting. I wondered if Papa truly believed we'd be able to get along (seemed unlikely, with how things had begun, he'd been there and he wasn't prone to being delusional).

Arrangements were made beforehand, Mike and the twins wouldn't be sitting at the table, none of them were comfortable enough with sitting so close to the others after our rather 'tempestuous' first couple of meetings. Melinda would there, except she would play the part of an interested SHIELD Agent. With the way things were going thus far we wanted, needed, her to be the voice of reason, for the others to respect, which some (Stark!) were likely not to do if they knew she was one of us. She didn't like it, but it wasn't the first time the Cavalry agreed to do something for the good of the team, of my sister and me. Of course Skye, Loki and I would be sitting right there, everyone knew we spoke for our team. I just hoped Stark wouldn't be too childish (again), there just was no time for games, not with the threat that was coming our way.

"So Thor, what's his plan?" Captain Rogers asked after a long, uncomfortable silence.

"We don't have all the details…" The blonde among the Warriors Three, Fandral, began.

All of us Caterpillars rolled our eyes (and most didn't even bother being discreet about it); even the Lady Sif seemed ready to smack herself in the forehead (or maybe him). One of the first things we had all been taught: always keep control of the situation, and when you don't have it, pretend; never make it known that you're anything but sure of things.

"There's an army of creatures that are just known as Chitauri, nothing specific is known about them." Thor began explaining. "According to some journals I found, they're a race that lost their planet and possibly also their original name ages ago. They serve other, much more powerful beings now."

"And one intends to, what? Attack our world? Invade? Conquer?" Maria Hill, Deputy Director of SHIELD, practically demanded.

It was obvious he had no idea of the answer to that question and, for whatever the reason, my match decided to step in right then.

"It doesn't really matter." He stated calmly. "Whatever their intent you can be sure it means nothing good for us all. Which means we have to stop them."

"We believe the Chitauri will be lead by Malekith the Accursed, the last of the dark-elves, who managed to survive the battle in Midgard last year." Sif began explaining further. "He lost the Aether, and now he's turned his eyes to the Tesseract."

A crazy thought came to me: Was it possible that Malekith intended to exchange the Tesseract for the Aether? And if so, did that mean that whoever was 'lending' him the army, the Chitauri, had access to the Aether, or was the elf just being played? I wasn't quite sure which option might turn out worse.

*The first, definitely.* My love replied inside the bond connecting our minds. *Truth is that I can think only of one creature that might exist and survive in the abyss, have control of an army like the chitauri, and interest on the Tesseract… and if it already has access to another of the Infinity Stones… that's definitely not a good sign.*

*Yeah…* I could probably have guessed as much. *I suppose, this probably isn't the right time to bring that up.*

*You're right about that.* He agreed. *We must take care of this threat of invasion first, the chitauri and Malekith, then we can worry about who might be behind it all.*

"We can guess then they intend to create a new portal using the Cube, like they did at the base in Arizona?" Stark stated, all business.

"That will be kinda hard considering they do not, currently, have the Cube." Melinda was the one to drop the bomb.

"What…?!" Apparently no one had expected that.

"Agents Johnson and their team, the Caterpillars recovered the Tesseract, along with Drs. Foster and Selvig." Director Fury explained, and I couldn't miss the pride in his voice, or his eyes.

"Why weren't we told about this?!" Stark demanded, loudly. "I thought we'd been looking for the Cube all this time! And now you're telling me it's been right here all along?!"

"You and Dr. Banner have been tracking the trace of energy exuded by the being that took over the Arizona base." Maria clarified. "Not the Cube."

"We know you Stark." Melinda said, quite bluntly. "Had you known the Tesseract was on board you would have done anything to experiment on it. Since we do not know if this dark-elf, Malekith, was guided to the Cube, or managed to track down its energies, we cannot allow it out in the open, least it guide him and his army straight to us."

"Shouldn't he be dead already?" Rogers asked. "If I remember correctly, The Johnsons and their team collapsed the facility upon them, or so you all said, didn't that kill him? Them?"

All eyes were immediately on us, particularly the Aesir, I was sure they too were wondering just how we'd managed to collapse a building on our own.

"It was necessary." My sister said, stoically. "It was the only way we were getting out. That monster was practically on our heels, and it wasn't alone…"

She cut herself off abruptly. It was something we didn't like remembering, the fact that it hadn't only been monsters that we'd buried down there, (the chitauri probably) but also agents, good men and women who'd probably just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, who were being used… and we couldn't save them. We couldn't even really try. Our mission was clear, get in, get the assets (Foster, Selvig and the Tesseract) and get out. We couldn't focus on anything else, especially when any mistakes, any delays, could end up costing us the mission, or even the lives of all of us. Even as it was we barely managed to get out, with my sister collapsing the building the moment we were out.

Yeah, we were probably responsible for the death of many people, good people, but there was nothing we could do about that. We could still lose, and if we did, then the loss of life would be much, much greater. So we couldn't really focus on what had already happened, only on what was coming. There simply was no time…

"Considering the nature of the invaders, I would rather err on the side of caution and suppose our enemies are still very much out there." Nick stated, quite calmly.

"Wow Nicky, don't you sound a bit paranoid!" Stark joked.

"Would you rather wait until a hole opens over Manhattan and aliens begin pouring into the streets, destroying everything?" I snapped at him. "Because that's quite probably what will happen if we don't find Malekith and whoever else crossed the portal with him, and fast."

"Didn't they need the Cube to open a portal?" Rogers inquired, sounding confused.

"There's more than one way to skin a cat." Banner said sagely. "And I suppose, in this case, there's more than one way to invade our world."

"Quite." We all agreed.

My love went on to explain the ways the chitauri army might find its way into our planet, in the most general terms, justifying his knowledge in every way he could. If the Aesir really hadn't discovered him yet the last thing we needed was for him to reveal himself if it wasn't absolutely necessary. If/When the time came to fight, all bets would be off, of course, a battlefield was not the kind of place to hold back.

So things weren't easy, and Stark was most definitely an ass, but the meeting was still productive and we didn't all end on each other's throats (and no glasses shattered… or people thrown around) so I was going to count it all as a win.

Now all that was necessary was for our luck to hold a little longer and we might be able to win the upcoming battle too.

 **xXx**

The tension was killing me! Truly. I am a very passionate person, it's something Skye and I have in common. During our childhood and teenage years that had been evidenced in our dedication to our studies (we had, after all, finished three graduate degrees by the time we were nineteen, each) and to our training as agents (which had ended with the mess we'd gotten into in Puerto Rico, and later on the fight with Whitehall and his wannabe Hydra and the Inhumans).

There were a few ways to relieve tension: using our powers was the easiest, in a sense, we'd long since learnt not to be too destructive, and it still was a good way to tire us out. Another option was sparring, though for people with our level (not just of training –though we were missing on the experience-, but also of raw power), no normal spar was enough, it needed to be all out, no holds barred; and not just anyone was prepared or willing to go against us under those conditions (and we couldn't challenge just anyone, couldn't trust just anyone). The third option was sex.

Considering we were limited to the flying, camouflaged helicarrier, and that we were supposed to be holding onto the whole 'secret warriors' thing Papa Nicholas had put into place when the Caterpillars first came to be, neither option was really open to us. There was so much tension on the place, and both Skye and I were feeling it, resenting it, with our respective powers. I just hoped that whatever battle was coming our way it came soon, before we both snapped.

In any case, that was pretty much how we ended in a particularly… uncomfortable situation. What had begun as a kiss between me and Loki had soon turned into a full-on make-out session. We were in an alcove of a little used hallway, but apparently not completely abandoned. And who would find us but Captain America himself! He was more embarrassed by the whole thing than us (and really, with the things I've end up doing in my life, and considering it's not the first time I've been 'caught' by someone, doing something with my match… being found kissing and groping him wasn't really that much).

"Ma'am!" He practically spluttered.

"What…?" I asked, rolling my eyes, not quite letting go of my love.

"You… you shouldn't… this is a public area and…" In my opinion he was really too much of a prude for a man on his prime who should have been dating himself.

"And?" I couldn't help the hint of challenge in my tone. "I should be embarrassed? Ashamed? Sorry to be the one to tell you this, Captain, but I'm neither one of those, and it's unlikely I'll be. Just ask those that know me, those emotions do not exist in me. In my opinion they're ridiculous and unnecessary. And even if I thought differently, I would never be embarrassed or ashamed of kissing my husband."

That seemed to throw him for a loop, I could see him mouthing the word 'husband' a few times, though no word came out of his lips. I wondered how young he thought I was. While Skye and I'd been in full tactical gear when first meeting them (including platform-boots so I wouldn't look too much shorter than the others), we'd relaxed since then, going around in training clothes (still all black, still with tight ponytails, but much less formal). He'd seen my face, was seeing it right then, and he wouldn't be the first man to believe I was much younger than I actually was (not like twenty-four was old or anything, but still).

"We've been married for the last four years, if you must know, since I was twenty." I clarified.

It was more information that I'd have preferred to give him, but the last thing I needed was for him to get into his head that Loki was some kind of pervert. And if we were supposed to fight together in the upcoming battle, it was probably better to be on good terms with at least some of our future teammates.

Most of the time it felt like I'd loved Loki since forever, since the first time I met him, in the garden behind Salani Mansion in Maine, when I was eleven years old… sometimes it felt like I'd loved him for longer than that, before I was ever born…

 _At first the visits had happened every several months, then every other month, and then every few weeks. By the time Skye and I were fourteen (after the cancer and the deamarkonian) it almost seemed like Loki spent at least as much time in our world as he did in his. I was sure the only reason Papa Nicholas and Mama Kathryn didn't find out anything about him before the disaster in San Juan and our first visit to Afterlife was because they spent so much time working and were hardly ever home long enough to see him. Though they'd certainly heard about him (or at least the human name he'd given me that first day)._

 _Then that had happened, and they found the truth, and I'm quite sure the only reason Papa didn't go nuts with the whole concept of there being other realms and beings so much more powerful than us, was because he was feeling too grateful towards Loki for all he'd already done for all, and all he was still doing._

 _We were nineteen when Skye and I got involved in a hell of a mission in the Middle East. It wasn't supposed to be anything more than research and recon. Until we realized there was another SHIELD team there, with completely different orders (technically we weren't there for the same reasons, but as it turned out the two were too tightly entwined to properly separate them). It was one of the most terrifying ops we were ever involved in; truly ironic considering that the earth didn't shake even once; then again, the situation did not require that kind of force, but an entirely different measure of power. In any case, that had been the mission that earned us a new team member, and finally changing our status from a top-secret duo to an officially (and still almost completely top-secret) team…_

 _We'd just collected our papers, which certified us as masters in our respective areas of study: me in literature, mythology and history, Skye in psychology, relations and history. We both loved being Agents, but we weren't unaware of the risks, of the chance that one mistake might kill us, or at the very least end our careers on the field. Also, we wanted more. I was hoping the day would come when there would be actual communication between our world and the rest of the realms, and I wanted to be one of the people to handle that; I also knew that Skye hoped to one day be able to help other gifted, the people in the Index, and all those still in hiding._

 _We'd just gotten back to the manor, when Loki appeared straight in front of us, out of nowhere. I would have asked him how he was (he looked off) when suddenly all the blocks we always placed onto our bond whenever there was a mission (to prevent any possible distractions) came crashing down and I realized how wrong he was… the moment my arms wrapped around him he collapsed into my embrace._

" _It's all a lie…" He practically gasped as he panted into my neck. "My name, my family, my life, everything that makes me… me, is a lie!"_

 _By the time he finished he was practically screaming. Skye, a couple of feet behind me, stood dead still. We both had enough experience with gifted to know it was a bad idea to startle them, least the react instinctively and unleash their powers at us… and Loki was already doing that, unleashing a power we didn't even know he possessed._

 _It began with a sudden gust of chilling wind, and suddenly I realized we were standing over frozen grass. Skye was rubbing her arms as surreptitiously as she could, to try and keep some warmth. Though in the end she made herself vibrate, just a bit, just enough to create energy that would keep her body-temperature decent._

 _I didn't even need my Maverick to explain anything further, it was all painfully clear in that moment, just like the blue skin in the arms still around me… Loki wasn't Aesir, which meant he wasn't an Odinson, had never been. He hadn't been born a prince of Asgard (though if Odin had adopted him, they were still his family, and that was still his right, as far as I was concerned). Also, I didn't need anyone to tell me what race was connected with ice and the color blue…_

 _I briefly considered talking about adoptions, about chosen families. About how I honestly believed Odin, Frigg and Thor were still his family… it was true enough with Skye and us, with Papa Nicholas, why shouldn't it be so for them? But truth was I didn't like Odin any more than he did, and I didn't actually know the others. I couldn't know, for sure, that their family situation was the same as ours. However, there was one thing I could still hold onto._

" _Look at me." I instructed, taking hold of his face with both hands, and holding his eyes with my own. "Look at me, Maverick. I'm not a lie. I'm here. I'm right here and I'm real. I am still your Nightingale, just like you're still my Maverick, and that will never change. Never."_

 _He burrowed into my embrace again for a long while, and I could feel him calming down, not just by the way the tension drained from him, but also because of the way the ice melted and then fully disappeared, the temperature around us returning to what would be expected of a late spring afternoon (it was early June)._

 _Eventually Loki straightened up again (it wouldn't be until much later that we would both realize that he'd touched me, with his Jotun skin, and didn't burn me, and after a while longer, we would come to learn why that was, exactly)._

 _A moment later Skye was standing beside me. She looked straight at Loki as she, slowly and purposefully drew the intricately decorated short dagger she always kept strapped to one of her thighs (a gift from Loki and part of a set, I had the other one; they were charmed to injure or kill according to our will). She then very slowly drew the blade over her open right palm, before offering both bleeding hand and knife to Loki._

" _Brother…?" Was all she said._

 _She need not say more, we both knew exactly what she was offering, A blood-bond, Skye was offering to become his blood-sister. We were all well-versed on the ritual, having first read about it in some ancient history books, before having Loki explain the real magic-fueled version of the rite; we'd performed it once, with each other, shortly after the Terrigenesis. And in that moment she was offering the same to Loki, she was offering him herself, as a sister, a family, the very thing he believed to have lost…_

 _There was no doubt in Loki as he cut open his own right palm, before clasping it with Skye's bleeding one, their blood mingling as both quietly repeated the needed words in an ancient tongue. I just watched as a golden cord of light connected them, a symbol of family, under the eyes of the Higher Powers they were effectively brother and sister._

" _Sister." Was all he said in the end, with so much emotion I could feel it shaking me inside._

 _I stepped aside them allowing the two to embrace each other, feeling the echo of their love._

 _In the following days we learnt more of what had happened. Being SHIELD Agents ourselves we'd been aware of Thor's 'fall' to New Mexico. It had been necessary to brief Phil into the existence of other realms and their inhabitants, though not quite explaining how we knew (and he knew better than to ask)._

 _What we didn't know was just how bad things had been on Asgard at the same time. Everything Loki had to do to correct the mistake Thor had made on the day of his near-coronation, which had almost brought war to Asgard's door. And had anyone thanked him? No, instead they blamed it all on him (and, granted, some of it had been Maverick's fault); and in the end Thor had chosen to believe every negative word his so-called friends said rather than give his brother a chance. Loki had been so close to breaking point… and yet, instead of going down the deep-end, in the end he'd chosen simply to walk away, letting himself fall into the Shadow-Plane and allowing his instincts to guide him to the place he felt safe, where he felt most at peace: our home, to me…_

 _As angry and sad as I was on his behalf, I couldn't help but try to see the positive side of it all. He was with us, and we would take good care of him._

 _Loki and I were dating less than a week later (with my parents' permission); he was also, officially, a part of the Caterpillars team by the end of the summer. Finally, a year later, on June 13_ _th_ _, with my parents' blessing, Loki and I got married in a very private ceremony in the gardens of Salani Manor. The only guests to our wedding were my parents, our sister, our teammate Melinda May, her husband Andrew Garner, our parents' other two protégés: Maria Hill and Phil Coulson, as well as AC's assistant (recommended by us, as Skye knew her by being a hacker): Darcy Lewis, aka TaserQueen (who, in the following years, would come to be Phil's partner in the field and personally as well)._

 _It'd been almost four years since that day._

"I thought it went against the rules." Rogers's blurted words pulled me abruptly back to the present time and place. "Fraternization, especially with members of the same team."

"Our team, our rules." I couldn't help but say almost defensively.

It wasn't like he was the first person to say something like that. I'm sure that if our abilities weren't enough reason for Hand to, not quite hate but definitely dislike us, the relationships of every single member of the team, would have been enough. I also knew there were others like Sitwell, Blake and sometimes even Maria Hill herself, that only kept from making similar comments out of respect to my parents.

"Every person in the Caterpillars was hand-picked." My husband decided to be the reasonable one and explain things. "Each of us brings something to the table, something unique. In order for the team to work, we accept each other in every way. The two of us are married, the twins have dates but nothing serious, one more in our team is married, another is divorced and with a son, and finally two others are engaged to each other. It might not be orthodox, but it works for us."

And he wasn't even including the serious, and top-secret relationship our sister had… yeah, Captain Rogers definitely didn't need to know that part.

 **xXx 3** **rd** **Person POV xXx**

Tony Stark was having his own brand of fun, playfully harassing Bruce Banner in Steve Roger's line of sight. Bruce was well acquainted with Tony's personal brand of humor, had been subject to what he saw as jokes for a while (since the genius/former playboy/billionaire/philanthropist had decided he wanted to have Banner work with him and things like the Hulk were a minor annoyance that could and should be ignored); of course, Captain Rogers did not know that. Tony was almost rubbing his hands together while chuckling to himself like a bad-drama villain, when he was abruptly distracted by the two figures that dashed down the hall. The mere fact that a number of good-and-proper SHIELD Agents went running, told Tony that he wanted (needed) to know what was going on. So completely ignoring the captain and the beginnings of what was sure to be a memorable self-righteous speech, he walked right out of the lab and in the same direction the running agents had taken.

Tony Stark (with Bruce Banner and Steve Rogers following in a mix of exasperation and confusion) arrived to the end of that particular hallway, the bridge, just in time to see the Johnson sisters commandeer Fury's computers, apparently to no one's surprise (just who were those girls that they could take such liberties and no one got angry, not even surprised?). In seconds the huge main screen had a world-map on it.

"What's going on?" Maria Hill asked, confused by what was going on.

"We just got a call, or rather several, from a number of our contacts." The taller Agent Johnson announced seriously as her fingers flew over the keys at vertiginous speeds. "We know where the attacks are going to be."

"Wait a second…" Sitwell called, looking sick all of a sudden. "Did you just say attacks?"

"That's exactly what I said." The agent nodded grimly.

In that moment three red points and one white appeared on the screen. Replicas of the map appeared on every screen around the bridge, and upon taking a seat on one of the places of the round table, they could manipulate their copies enough to see tags naming each of the marked locations. The red points marked the north of Sokovia, the north of Rusia inside the Arctic circle, and a spot in South-Eastern China, a around 400 miles north of Hong Kong.

"Wait a second!" Agent Shadow, Darcy Lewis(-Coulson) called abruptly from her own station. "What those points have in common is…?"

No one missed the way she broke off abruptly. Though most didn't realize the moment Daisy Johnson opened her mouth to say something, only for her word to be drowned by the one pronounced by her siblings: Arianna and Serrure.

"Quake." They said at the same time.

"The point in white." Stark called right then. "It's where the SHIELD base was located, the one you took down. That's what all those points have in common? Whatever technology you have that can take down a acre-wide facility? Just how many places have you destroyed with that thing? That Quake?"

"Shut up Stark!" Several voices yelled to him at once.

The billionaire couldn't have missed that Nicholas Fury was one of the people to seem more angry with him. Even if he didn't quite understand why.

No one except the Caterpillars saw the way Daisy paled so drastically it looked like she might pass out any second.

"Don't talk about what you cannot possibly understand." Arianna hissed.

"I might be able to if you would just tell me!" Stark snapped. "Instead of hiding behind words like top-secret and classified."

"That's really not the point right now." Serrure stated, brushing off the other man's comment.

"True." Instantly Arianna was all-business once again. "We talked to our informants and they all agreed: four attacks are coming."

"Four…" Banner spoke up. "But only three of those locations are in red."

"We know there is a fourth, but we don't think it'll take place in Arizona." Serrure elaborated. "All our contacts agreed that the points of attack will be populated locations. The SHIELD-base was in an almost deserted area. So that cannot be it."

"And you deduced the other ones based on places where this… Quake technology was used?" Banner assumed. "Where else has it been used?"

"That's just it." Daisy finally gathered her wits about her and focused enough to get into the discussion again. "We cannot think of any other place where it was used, aside from those… at least not to that scale."

"You're focusing so much on this because of what 'informants' told you, what makes you think you can trust their intel?" Rogers inquired. "Who are these informants?"

"Allies, whom we trust and respect." Arianna spoke formally. "They are confidential contacts, known only to us. Their intel has helped us greatly in the past, it can be trusted."

"You may trust them, but it's not like we trust you!" Stark insisted. "I cannot be sure they're right or wrong until I know them!"

"Stark, do you not know what 'confidential informant' means?" Daisy practically growled.

She was moments away from unleashing her powers on the bastard, he was making her crazy. Even her lover couldn't push her buttons that way! (Or maybe he'd just learnt not to do it).

"Let's focus on something else." Banner called, trying to play peacemaker. "Quake, I'm assuming the name is telling of what the tech does. And if the attacks are happening in those locations, then it might mean that the portals are somehow tracking the energy left behind after the seismic events. Perhaps it's about more than just the technology, we need to check databases, the most serious earthquakes in the last five-years or so. Or get readings from the better known fault-lines, in case they're tracking growing tremors rather than past ones."

"It's about more than just earthquakes." Daisy muttered in sudden realization.

The eyes of several people began widening as, beneath the name-tags for each location, years began appearing: 2015, 2009, 2008… and then a fourth red point appeared with the year 2008 also: in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

"Puerto Rico…?!" Several voices called at the same time.

"What the hell did you do in Puerto Rico?!" Stark demanded hotly.

"There was a violent earthquake with epicenter near Puerto Rico in that year." Banner said quietly, thoughtfully. "It was quite commented, because there had never been anything like it in the country's history, not one so strong, or with the epicenter so close to land…"

Not a word was spoken out-loud, though a whole conversation was taken place non-verbally, as the Johnson sisters looked at each other.

"Are you sure?" Fury interrupted the exchange, asking the question to both of them.

One more look, and then they were both staring straight at the Director as they gave their answer.

"Yes." That was all that needed to be said.

"Hill, Coulson, Lewis, get in touch with the governments of Sokovia, Russia, China and Puerto Rico, we need those locations evacuated as soon as possible!"

"Yes sir!" The three called in unison.

"Sir, there's no way we can possibly handle an alien invasion on four fronts." Sitwell called after what seemed like forever.

"We only need to handle one front." The sisters announced in synch.

"We got in contact with our allies." Arianna stated officially. "Professor X says his X-Men, working along with the Fantastic Four will deal with Sokovia and the northern Russia."

"Thorn and Shock say their people will deal with the situation in China." Daisy added.

She'd barely remembered not to use the term 'Inhuman', she knew it wasn't a good, not with the Aesir present. They might be as scholarly as Loki, but if any of them knew anything at all about what the Kree had done… it could end up putting the whole tribe in danger. Daisy/Skye might have refused the leadership when it was offered to her, but that did not mean she wouldn't do anything in her power to keep them all safe.

"We have others keeping an eye on the Arizona site, just in case." Serrure offered. "However, we will need to take care of Puerto Rico, personally."

"Any way to know where this Dark-Elf you've mentioned before will appear?" Melinda inquired, interested. "I suppose that will be the prime invasion…"

The most important one, it was a good point.

"We have no way of knowing where he'll be." Serrure admitted.

"But we might have a way of making him come to us." Daisy offered unexpectedly.

"What…?!" No one was expecting that, not even her siblings.

"We already know chitauri are coming to Puerto Rico, now we just need to make sure he comes too." Daisy explained with a mix of eagerness and nervousness.

"And how do you plan to do that?" Stark asked. "Are you going to bring out your top-secret super-weapon?"

Several people around the room rolled their eyes, however, most of them kept looking straight at the taller Johnson, who was looking very solemn as she answered.

"Exactly."

 **xXx**

The smaller Johnson (Arianna), the rest of the team, and even a number of other Agents, opposed the plan, loudly and vehemently. Most of the would-be Avengers did not understand. Stark kept muttering about Fury being so selfish that even on the face of an alien invasion and hundreds of thousands of civilians in danger (more like billions, if one took in consideration that the world at large was under threat) Fury still didn't want to reveal his weapon.

"This isn't about a weapon, this is about the danger doing this would put some of my people." Fury stated with a hint of something most people couldn't read. "You might have a death wish Stark, but my agents shouldn't…"

"This isn't about a death wish…" Skye Daisy, one of the few who understood what he meant, replied softly. "This is about what we're supposed to be. SHIELD as a whole, and us Caterpillars in particular. SHIELD is meant to protect, to defend the world from the 'much weirder world'… at least that's how AC and Robot like to put it." She smiled lopsidedly. "And the Caterpillars… we've been playing Secret Warriors for the last five years… maybe it's time we go further. From the very moment this began, even before we formed the team, I've always known what I wanted, and so did you. Maybe this is the chance, to show the world what… who we really are. To show them how much the world is truly changing."

"What if the world isn't ready yet?" Fury asked, but he did not sound angry, not even challenging at all, instead he was… concerned.

"It'll have to be." Skye replied, completely calm. "I know I am."

"We are." Silbhé Arianna corrected, standing shoulder to shoulder with her sister.

"Very well." Fury nodded after what seemed like forever. "Do it."

The two sisters nodded before spinning around in place and leaving the bridge, their teammates filing behind them without a word.

"Just who the hell are those chicks?!" Stark demanded loudly.

He didn't understand. Just who could they be, that they could take control of Fury's things, of the bridge, that everyone followed them, that even Fury listened to them and let their choices stand, even when he obviously didn't like it?

"Those two?" A non-descript agent commented from a side in an even tone. "They're the Princesses of SHIELD."

The answer just left Stark gaping even more. What the hell was that supposed to mean?!

 **xXx**

It took a little while longer, but eventually the members of the Avengers Initiative had sorted themselves out and were ready to go too. Much as he might not like to admit it, Stark knew enough of the X-Men and the Fantastic Four to be confident that they could handle things on both Sokovia and Russia, and while he had no idea who was in China, he was willing to go with the flow and focus on Puerto Rico. Also, he would admit he was a bit curious about the Quake weapon and whatever the Johnsons and their Caterpillars might be planning.

The group was walking towards their quinjet, when they noticed a female agent of Chinese ascendance, dark-brown hair to her shoulder blades and equally brown eyes dressed in an attire very much like Natasha Romanoff's, except in deep-blue, and black-leather boots, standing by the entrance to one of the quinjets.

"Agent Melinda May, the Cavalry…" Stark blurted out in a fake-ominous tone. "That's some codename! Especially considering most of your file is redacted."

Melinda remained completely unmoving (and feeling deeply unimpressed), refusing to rise to Stark's bait. The man-child was worse than Pietro and Skye put together in their worst days!

"So what, you want to join our team?" Stark kept trying to provoke her.

At that Melinda truly laughed, she couldn't help it.

"What?!" Stark demanded, he didn't like not being in on the joke.

"Whyever would I want to join your fledgling team Stark when I already have my own?" She inquired, cocking her head to a side. "And it's the best team in the world…"

"Wait a second…" Rogers called, giving a step forward. "You're a Caterpillar Agent May?"

"I am." Melinda nodded. "Have been from the moment the team was founded.

She didn't tell them the Johnson sisters had been doing missions together for two years before the team ever came to be, though.

"So you'll be the one transporting this weapon, Quake?" Stark asked, very interested.

May's expression went hard and cold all of a sudden.

"Nightingale is right." The Agent stated quietly. "Do not speak about what you cannot understand Stark. And be advised, this is your last warning!"

"Nightingale?" Banner asked, in an attempt to defuse the situation.

"The codename to the older Johnson sister." Melinda answered, somewhat evasively. "In the field its codenames only."

"And the codenames of the rest…?" Stark muttered, already suspecting he wouldn't be getting an answer, or at least not one he would like.

"You'll learn them when you need to." Melinda answered simply. "You already know I'm the Cavalry, you'll learn the others in due time."

"We'll be seeing you in San Juan then." Rogers stated, rather than asked.

"Of course." May nodded, and after thinking it over for a moment or two, added. "Be advised Captain, your rank might stand with most in SHIELD, and you may command the Avengers Initiative. But the Caterpillars follow the Johnson sisters only."

Steve Rogers, Captain America, obviously wasn't expecting that. Everyone was so deferent to him, and while he didn't exactly like it most of the time, he found it convenient during fights. Except in that moment he was going to battle and half of his allies would not be following him.

"And who do the Daughters of Johnson follow?" Lady Sif asked, intrigued and somewhat unnerved by everything going on.

If the Captain Rogers was the highest rank in the field, shouldn't he be the one to command them all? No one had ever referred to the sisters with any title that might show them to be above him… except for that agent who had called them princesses…

"Director Fury." May gave them the simple answer, knowing already they wouldn't understand the more complex one.

A moment later Captain Rogers nodded once, before leading his own team to another quinjet. Melinda May stood there, waiting for her own team to arrive, they had some time yet, and she knew they were getting ready to make a stand.

She knew that the Avengers didn't understand a lot where it came to the Caterpillars team, and especially the Johnson sisters. Really, anyone who wasn't part of the team had a hard time understanding how they functioned. Even agents who had worked and been saved by the team in general and the sisters in particular, more than once, found them odd. Most would never be able to grasp why Melinda was part of the team. Why she'd made such a choice (because it had been her choice). Then again, those people hadn't been there in Bahrain, hadn't seen what she'd seen on that day:

 _It was supposed to be a simple mission. Just another 'Index Asset Evaluation and Intake', or like some (like Skye, Darcy and Coulson) preferred to call it: the Welcome Wagon. The mark was a woman called Eva Belyakov, gifted with super-strength. It seemed to be a recent development. SHIELD wanted a chance at recruiting the woman before she got too mixed up with the some of the more unsavory organizations in the Middle-East._

 _It had been a surprise when they found the Johnsons were already on site. They explained they were on a recon mission pertaining the theft of a dangerous artifact which belonged to their allies in China. Something they called a terrigen crystal (and refused to elaborate on). They had no reason to believe their missions connected in any way, though for some reason May couldn't understand, Coulson had asked them to stay around, just in case._

 _Things had gone south pretty fast. Belyakov had noticed them, apparently she was already in contact with some kind of criminal organization, or at least with mercenaries; as they could see all the men who had followed as she barricaded herself inside one of the buildings. One of the men had also taken a young girl who'd been playing nearby… and that May couldn't stand for._

 _Truth be told she hadn't been paying much attention to the sisters, the two had been arguing quietly among themselves in a language May did not know, though it sounded European (later she would learn it was Gaelic, Arianna's favored language)._

 _When the SHIELD Agents went in and then did not come out, decisions had to be made. There was no back-up coming, and Coulson couldn't go. Also, the local authorities were threatening with going in themselves, something all SHIELD agents knew was a bad idea. So May took it upon herself to handle the situation. She wasn't expecting it when the sisters announced they were going with her (neither was Coulson)._

 _She hadn't liked the idea at the first, the Johnson sisters were clearly young (barely 19) to be getting involved in so dangerous situations. However, their ranks and the fact that they weren't their subordinates, mean that neither Coulson nor May could really stop them. So in the end they just went along with it. It was something May would always be grateful for._

 _Daisy was the one to announce that the men were being controlled, though she didn't explain how that was happening, or how she knew. May took it upon herself to cross off all the mercs, while the sisters knocked out all SHIELD Agents, being careful not to hurt them too badly. It went well, until they got to the main floor, where Belyakov, the girl, and half of the remaining men (mercs and agents both) remained._

" _You get the girl out and I…" Melinda began, only to be interrupted._

" _No." The sisters said in unison._

" _What…?" May wasn't expecting that._

" _Eva Belyakov has super-strength." Arianna stated calmly._

 _Melinda was about to ask what she expected by stating the obvious, when she got her answer._

" _Who do you think is manipulating the men?"It was Daisy who said those words._

 _The older agent had no answer to that._

" _I cannot believe she did that." Arianna muttered under her breath, addressing her sister. "I mean, it's one thing to feel offended by a refusal, but to actually force it… It's insane! I wonder what she would think, if she were conscious enough to know what's going on, what's she's provoked…" she shook her head. "Spirits!"_

" _What are you talking about?" Melinda demanded._

" _It's a bit complicated." Daisy said even as she tried to summarize. "The artifact we were looking for, it might be what caused this. Eva was the one who stole it… well, we didn't know her name, just that the thief was here in Bahrain, and it's obvious now."_

" _Are you saying your crystal gave that woman her super-strength?" May didn't understand._

" _No, that she already had." Daisy shook her head, not quite ready to explain that there were other crystals, and everything else about the Inhumans. "I mean she used the crystal to give power to her daughter. And that's how the child came to be able to manipulate people."_

" _Can you undo it?" Melinda thought it was all absolutely insane, but they were so outnumbered, the odds weren't good, she was willing to try pretty much anything at that point._

" _No, the change, when it happens, it does so at a genetic level." Arianna half-explained. "It cannot be undone."_

" _Any way to free the agents?" May asked next, trying to come up with some kind of plan._

" _You're not taking my friends away!" The child, Katya Belyakov, practically screeched. "I will not let you! I will kill them before you can take them away!"_

 _As if to prove her point, all the mercs in the room dropped in that moment. No questions needed to be asked, all three female agents knew they were dead. And the agents would be next, unless one of them could think of something…_

 _It was May who reached what she saw as the obvious conclusion first. As discretely as possible, she chambered a round in her gun, and began preparing herself to shoot the girl._

" _Do you want to be my friends too?" Katya asked in a sickeningly sweet voice, as she began slowly walking towards the women._

 _Before Melinda could finish psyching herself up for what she 'needed to do', Arianna was on the move. She threw herself on top of the girl, taking her down, moving her hands to the child's neck; at the same time Katya reached her uncovered face._

 _Melinda and Daisy screamed at the same time. A handful of seconds later there was a flash of light only one of them could actually see; while the other focused on the fact that all the agents had dropped to the floor, unconscious rather than dead. Then Arianna sat up, taking deep breaths while trying to clean the blood from her fingers on her own clothes (though it was hard when she was the one bleeding)._

" _I'm alright." She announced with a sigh._

 _Melinda May had no idea what she'd done, what had just happened. Was Arianna Johnson suicidal or something? Why hadn't Katya's creepy ability worked on her? What was with the blood? Or the strange figures Arianna had apparently intentionally drawn on the girl's chest (just above her hart)? Just who were the Johnson sisters anyway?!_

 _The moment they were out Melinda demanded answers from Coulson, who told her to bring it up with the girls' 'handler': Co-Director of SHIELD: Kathryn Adler, the Sphinx. It'd been a hell of a tale, full of so many surprises Melinda would never had believed it from anyone other than Adler and Fury (and the fact that the sisters were around to provide some graphic proof helped too). She also found out what Arianna had done to Katya Belyakov. Apparently once an Inhuman had been through terrigenesis the changes couldn't be undone. But at least Katya's gift could be blocked. Arianna had used magic to trap it inside the girl's own skin. Tied to the blood, as long as Arianna lived, Katya would have no power; there was nothing they could do about the girl being a sociopath though._

 _At the end of the long explanation Melinda made two choices: to allow the codename 'Cavalry' to take hold and the legend to grow (if everyone focused on her they wouldn't stop to wonder what the Johnson sisters did in that mission); she also asked to be transferred, she wanted to work with the sisters, as their pilot and backup. It was the official start of the Caterpillars team._

"Ready to go?" The voices of the Johnson sisters pulled Melinda from her memories.

The Cavalry looked at the up and down for a moment, noticing the changes in them. They truly were making a stand, and not just the sisters, but everyone. It appeared like their time of being the 'Secret Warriors' had come to an end. The Caterpillars were stepping into the light, and the world will then see what they truly were made of, and the fact that they were not just caterpillars but more… so much more…

Hopefully the world would be ready, they certainly were.

* * *

I know things might seem confusing at times, I'm trying to explain everything that's different in this particular reality, but if I miss something let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Now, while I'll try my best to post the second half of this fic in two weeks, I cannot make any guarantees, for two reasons: first, even as I get working on posting this I haven't written more than a couple of pages of the next part; Second, right now my focus is actually on an original work.

And on that front, PLEASE READ THIS: I'm currently participating on a contest over at , with an original WIP called "Krystel - Book 1: Blue". I'd love it if you could read that, leave me a review, hopefully even vote for me. The winner will be published. The contest ends on Dec 14th. I will be very grateful to every reader and every vote.

As always, full-sized poster and set of wallpapers are on DeviantArt.

Please don't forget to comment! Suggestions are welcomed.


	2. Butterflies

I had so many ideas for this fic, and then I didn't know quite what to do with a lot of them. I hope this works out well enough.

Warning: If you've watched what's happened in AoS in season 3, know I'm ignoring all of it (aside from the potential of Skye's power, and the FitzSimmons... though since I'd already decided on both of those before they ever happened on screen, I suppose it's not too much). I really don't like where the show seems to be going right now, hope it'll get better later on. Still, for the purpose of this piece there's no Lash, no 'Inhuman-spree', the monolith was destroyed before anyone ever ended trapped on the other side and there's no ACTU (I really, really don't like that b...woman).

Next point in the list, originally Skye's pairing was supposed to be a secret, only hinted at. Then I began getting a lot of ideas for them and decided to give them their own short fic, aside from this one, a sort of companion, if you will... then, as I was writing this chapter, they began slipping more and more into the story, until I decided it just might be easier to do it all in one single piece (there's also the fact that I had no idea what to call the other fic). So, consider this my official announcement regarding Skye's pairing for the Nightingale verse (because, since it's all about matches here, this pairing shall hold for the rest of the series). I asked for months on your opinions, only one person gave me a straight answer. You know who you are dear, I hope you'll enjoy this. It's official now: Skyeward!

Now, please read and I hope you'll enjoy.

* * *

 **Butterflies**

Always a time comes to step out of the shadows and into the light.

 **xXx 3** **rd** **Person POV xXx**

The members of the Avengers Initiative were doing their best to help local authorities and other SHIELD Agents evacuate as many people from the Eastern side of Puerto Rico as possible. They knew the main focus was in San Juan, though they didn't quite understand why. All they knew (because Stark had hacked SHIELD… again) was that a highly classified event had taken place there eight years prior, and it had involved at least two high-ranked SHIELD Agents.

They had pretty much managed to empty San Juan and its neighboring towns when suddenly they all felt it, the ground shifting beneath their feet, just a second before a violent earthquake began.

"Is that…?" Captain America, in full uniform, began, rushing to get back on his feet (the shaking had been harsh enough to send him sprawling).

"They've activated the weapon!" Iron Man called, turning in the direction JARVIS told him the shaking was originating from.

"You should really stop saying that before someone decks you Stark." Hawkeye told him in a very no-nonsense tone.

The billionaire didn't understand. What was the problem with calling a weapon exactly that?

In the end the shaking was enough to make the people who'd been stubborn about staying home, decide to get away too. The Avengers left the proper authorities to handle the rest of the evacuation, while they followed Iron Man to the epicenter of the earthquake.

What they found they couldn't have ever imagined. The Caterpillars were standing right there. Melinda May/Cavalry and Mike Peterson/Cyborg looked much like they'd seen them before, in wide-stances; they seemed to know well enough how to keep standing even though the shaking was bad enough in that area they should all be in the ground. But it was with the others that the true surprises started:

The Maximoff twins were looking quite different than they had before. With the boy dressed in a long-sleeved sweatshirt in shades of blue and with details in white, dark-blue tight-pants and sneakers; his hair no longer looked pale blonde, but shockingly white. Then there was the girl, in a short black dress, red-leather jacket with sleeves to her elbows, black-leather arm-guards, dark-leather boots and black long-socks to just below her knees; her hair was auburn and her whole body seemed to be almost glowing red. They also stood near the center of the tremors with seemingly no problem whatsoever (they couldn't know Wanda/Scarlet Witch was using her own gift to keep her stable, while Pietro/Quicksilver was pretty much vibrating himself at the same rhythm as the earthquake).

Finally right on the epicenter of the disaster stood the last three members of the Caterpillars (at least of those currently in Puerto Rico, as a couple of others were still in New York). And the differences from how they had looked before, to their looks then, were even more noticeable than with any of the others. The man, Luke Serrure/Maverick (Luka Hvedrungr/Loki) was dressed fully in black leather (pants, jacket, boots); her black hair was slicked back and he was no longer wearing any glasses to hide his emerald green eyes. He laid against a wall, almost casually, as if nothing at all were happening around him. Arianna Johnson/Nightingale (Silbhé Kinross-Salani) was standing by his side, her attire mixing all shades of purple: a lavender long-sleeved tunic, dark-violet short-sleeved long dress with a slit down the front, mauve fingerless gloves and suede boots that went above her knees; her hair was still pulled back in a ponytail, but her face was clear, showing hazel eyes. She stood beside her teammate and husband, looking as much at ease as he did, not shaking at all.

The last member of the group was before the other two, a knee to the ground and both hands, palm open, pressed to the earth. The earth-stopped shaking a moment before she got on her feet and they could all see she was wearing black-jeans, a long black-leather jacket, fully closed and black-leather boots; her hair too was in a ponytail, but her face was free, showing her chocolate brown eyes; also, most noticeably, she wasn't wearing gloves anymore. That was her, the real her, regardless of the names: Daisy Johnson, Skye Kinross-Salani…

"Wha…?!" None of the Avengers seemed to know what to say.

"I am Quake." She announced, no hesitation.

"You're gifted…" Banner breathed out as he realized it, couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it before. "You're all gifted."

"Like my sister said, she's Quake." Arianna took over the introductions. "I am Nightingale, and you can call him Maverick. The twins: Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. And, of course, you've seen Cyborg and Cavalry before."

Of course, Melinda didn't have any special abilities, but it wasn't like she needed them. There was a reason why she was considered an Elite, right there with Coulson and Hill (Fury's right and left hands… his good eyes); just like Nicholas Fury, Kathryn Adler and Sharon Carter had been during the first generation, the one responsible for the founding of SHIELD (the three had been the first team to be formed, lead by the first Directors).

Thor and Sif reacted to the girl announcing herself as Nightingale, but they were the only ones, and no one noticed it at all.

Before Stark could wind himself up or something enough to do or say anything at all, what they were waiting for finally happened: a dark hole opened in the sky.

A low bell sounded and Maverick promptly answered the call on his comm. He said a few words in answer and then turned to his team.

"We were right." He announced. "Similar holes have just opened in the sky above Hunan, China; Sokovia and Krasnoyarsk Kai, Russia. Our allies are ready to handle things in those locations. Which means we need to take care of this one."

"Did the plan work?" Quake asked, taking deep breath and swallowing an energy elixir that had been designed specifically to help her recover quickly after using her powers to a large scale (it meant that eventually she would crash and sleep for more than twelve hours in a row… but it was definitely worth it).

"It did." Nightingale nodded, getting off her own comm. "Dr. Foster just confirmed that the readings on this portal and higher than those in the others. Malekith is coming to us."

"Perfect, then lets get this party started!" Quake announced.

As if that were some kind of signal, aliens began pouring out of the hole, and into their planet. The battle(s) had begun.

 **xXx Nightingale's POV xXx**

It was the kind of event we'd been training our whole lives for… and yet, once we were there, once it was happening, we realized we weren't ready for it, at all.

We'd been training for thirteen years, had had our powers for right, been agents for seven and part (and leaders) of the Caterpillars for five. We'd fought against humans, mutants, metas and inhumans, had faced supremacists, insane bastards and almost every single attempt at rebuilding Hydra. We were theoretically prepared for a future confrontation with Asgard (we weren't so naïve as to believe they wouldn't one day find Loki and come for him… and no one was taking my husband from me).

And yet, we weren't ready for what was happening right then. Because that fight, it wasn't just a mission, a skirmish, a battle… it was war.

We didn't have a plan, per say, not beyond calling enough attention to pull the 'big bad' to us. However, some things were obvious enough. My love would be handling Malekith, I'd be close enough to him to provide back-up as needed; and the rest of the team around, ready to help is necessary, but mostly taking care of most of the aliens.

The Avengers were there too, of course, but I wasn't actually counting them. If they helped, that was good, but I wasn't counting on them. None of them (except AC, if we counted him as part of that group) had given us a reason to trust them with our backs.

"Listen everyone." I called into our personal comm. line before I could think better of it. "This is it, there's no going back now. We're going all out."

"No more holding back." I heard Maverick agreeing. "The Chitauri will have no mercy on you, return the favor."

"No more Secret Warriors." Quake sealed. "It's time the world knows who we are."

"Caterpillars!" The twins called in unison.

Everyone echoed the sentiment, even Melinda; and for a second it sounded exactly like 'Butterflies'…

 **xXx 3** **rd** **Person POV xXx**

The battle was long, and more than a little insane. The Caterpillars doing crazy stunt, which nearly gave more than one of the Avengers a heart-attack.

Like when Scarlet Witch ended in an intersection, with Chitauri approaching her from every direction. She began firing hexes almost without aiming anymore. Captain America went in her direction, intending to back her up, particularly as he'd seen an alien approaching her from what appeared to be her blind-spot. Only for her to charge yet another hex and move to shoot, straight at the Captain! He was about to yell at her, but in the last moment Quicksilver seemed to appear out of nowhere, pulling his sister to a side, just enough to dodge the attack from the approaching Chitauri, before twisting her around, so the moment her hex was actually fired, it hit the enemy straight on.

To most the whole things would have seemed like an accident, some big cosmic coincidence… but Steve Rogers had fought a war. He'd gone into battle with the same group of men, the Howling Commandoes, enough time to reach a moment where it was almost like they all knew what the others were going to do next. That was exactly the kind of report the Caterpillars had.

The next great shock came to Iron Man and, to a lesser degree, Hawkeye. The Cavalry had been running across rooftops, windowsills and other such, stopping every so often to shoot aliens down. It'd been obvious she'd eventually run out of 'ground', especially as she approached the downtown area and the open-park. Hawkeye made a signal in her direction, just in case she hadn't realized it, but she just smiled at him before mumbling something into her comm. Quake… she'd just called the name of her team-mate.

Iron Man flew around a corner just into to see Melida May, the Cavalry, run straight off the edge of a four-story building. His speed was too much to allow him to change direction and get there in time to stop the woman's fall; he knew that, and yet he still tried. The attempt sent him into a half-controlled spiral. By the time he managed to right himself again, he realized there wasn't an agent-shaped splatter mark on the cement, instead the Cavalry was half-crouched on thin air! A look down revealed the source to be one of the Agent Johnsons, Quake, who had both hands extended in the direction the team-mate; she was doing something with her powers that was keeping her up.

At some pre-arranged signal from the Cavalry, Quake upped the intensity of her powers, allowing her team-mate to shoot up, straight into the path of one of the chitauri chariots, right on time for the agent to get herself on it. She then took over the flying chariot, leading a number of aliens on a merry chase; before eventually making them all crash, either against each other or a cliff-face. She just managed to throw herself off the thing right on time, landing on a roll in yet another rooftop, close to the Marina, where Cyborg was holding his ground.

After what he'd just witnessed, Iron Man felt the need to get on steady ground, just for a moment. And he'd thought he was insane!

Minutes later he found himself using his weapons from behind a couple of cars which had been blown up sideways at some point and were serving as barricades. Hawkeye, Black Widow and even Agent (Coulson) right there with him.

"Those baby agents are going to give me a heart-attack, I swear." Stark complained eventually.

Romanoff rolled her eyes without stopping her own moves; though his words seemed to at least called the men's attention.

"What did they do now?" Coulson asked, already having an idea.

So Stark told them, about what he'd witnessed. They all knew about what the twins had done, already, Rogers had been unable to keep it to himself. The shocking part, at least to the self-named genius-billionaire-playboy-philanthropist, was how not-surprised Agent looked.

"Usually the Johnsons are the ones teaming up to pull off that kind of stunts." AC admitted with a shrug. "Though it probably shouldn't be surprising, with Nightingale busy being Maverick's back-up against Malekith."

"I thought Point-Break and his 'amigos' were supposed to deal with the creepy alien warlord." Stark blurted out, somewhat confused.

Coulson shrugged, he wasn't about to explain what some of the Caterpillars were capable of; and the fact that they took the safety of their world to seriously it was unlikely they would ever be willing to leave it someone else's hands.

"Just like Budapest, all over again." Hawkeye commented at some point.

"At least our backup is already onsite." Black Widow stated with a shrug.

"What back-up?" Iron Man demanded, not understanding the comment.

"Are you really that blind Stark?" Coulson asked before he could stop himself.

"Them? Really?!" Stark either couldn't believe it, or he just refused to.

Romanoff and Barton looked at each other and then shook their heads. They knew Stark didn't understand; but he was so against the Caterpillars, and the Johnsons in particular that no matter what they told him, how much they explained things, it'd be pointless in the end. He'd never understand how truly amazing the sisters (the whole team, but especially those two) were. Everything they'd done, not just for the two of the, but for many others in SHIELD. May might have been the only one to directly request to be placed in their team after they'd saved her… but that didn't mean there weren't others who didn't owe their lives to them too, who wouldn't do everything to help them given the chance.

There were some, like Agent Bobbi Morse, aka Mockingbird and her husband, former mercenary Lance Hunter, who'd tried to join the team going to do battle in San Juan, but they weren't allowed to, the best they could do was be part of the team helping civilians, ready to go in if the worst happened and the Caterpillars and Avengers failed.

The battle continued then. There were a few more insane stunts, mostly from the Maximoff twins and the Johnson sisters, a couple more from the Cavalry. Even Iron Man seemed to want to give it a try when he decided the best way to take down a Leviathan was to do a Jonah and get inside the 'belly of the beast' to take it down.

Then came the message none of them were expecting.

"Children!" It was Darcy Lewis-Coulson's voice, practically screaming over the comms from her position with the team of Agents waiting on ground, yet away from the battle.

"What…?!" For a second no one quite understood what she meant, they didn't want to.

"There are children trapped inside a daycare." Darcy stated grimly. "We have no way of getting to them, and the building has been hit enough times… it's coming down any moment now…"

"Is there any chance of the Gifted teleporters might come give us a hand?" AC asked, already suspecting/fearing the answer.

"Even Nightcrawler couldn't poof all the way from Russia." Darcy stated.

Everyone wanted to do something to help, anything; and ye they couldn't. Not only because they didn't have the necessary powers to get the children out and away from the battlefield unharmed; but because they couldn't stop fighting right then.

"I'll do it." A voice announced, unexpectedly.

It took a couple of seconds to realize it had been the shorter (and older) of the Johnson sisters who'd spoken.

"Nightingale!" Several of her teammates called.

"Are you a teleporter?" Captain America asked, taking advantage of the fact that someone (Darcy) had apparently linked their channels.

"No." Nightingale answered honestly, even as she continued her own fight. "Not really. I can do some things… but it's nowhere near enough to get those kids out."

"Then wha…?" Stark began.

"What I can do is make sure they're safe." She went on. "But for that I need someone to take my place right now!"

Not everyone had eyes on her right then, so they couldn't know what she meant; however, for those who did, it was pretty obvious. Maverick and Nightingale were standing side by side, fighting a huge stone-like monster, a Kursed he'd called it; which was the only thing standing between them and Malekith.

Most would think there was no way someone as small as Nightingale were actually managing much against Kursed, but they only needed to see her, see them, fight for a handful of seconds, and they'd understand. Maverick was the only one fighting the monster directly, but his wife, she was an extra pair of eyes, hands and feet, she was his protector, his shield; fluid, unbreakable and unstoppable. Whenever it seemed like Maverick was letting himself open to some kind of attack, she'd suddenly be there; whenever the Kursed attempted to attack from what could be considered a blind-spot of his opponent, she'd block him and somehow manage to push him back, even if it was only a little; it was always enough to keep them going.

No one could be quite sure how the decision was made, but in the end it was Quake who took Nightingale's place, a second before the small woman threw himself straight at the monster, burying her biggest knife as deep as she could into the Kursed's neck, before flipping backwards and off him, straight into the path of its claws, or so it seemed.

None of the Caterpillars moved, they didn't even blinked; however, the Avengers' couldn't help the drowned exclamation as the young woman vanished into thin air a fraction of a second before vicious claws would have been buried in her.

"I'm with the children." They could all hear her through the comms a second later, she was panting, but otherwise sounded fine.

A handful of minutes later Steve Rogers managed to free himself enough he decided to go and make sure Nightingale and the children were alright. What he found wasn't quite what he'd been expecting.

He'd noticed the humming in his ear, of course, the quiet singing, but hadn't made what should probably have been an obvious connection. He reached what looked like it was/had been a daycare, and found a building that seemed to be about to fully collapse. The windows were all shattered and the supports seemed to have mostly broken, the roof half caved-in. And then there was she, one of the Caterpillar leaders: Nightingale was standing in the middle of the room, hands raised above her head, palms open; it almost seemed as if she were holding the piece of fallen roof up, all on her own. And yet the Captain's eyesight was good enough that he could see there was something in between her hands and the stone, like a semi-translucent film, with hints of white and lilac in it. Some kind of shield…?

"We need to find a way to get these children out!" The Captain practically yelled into his comm.

"That's… not a good idea Captain." Nightingale told him, panting a bit.

The children, all gathered around her, sitting on the ground, along with the two women who were probably in charge of them, continued the quiet singing even when she stopped.

"Ma'am this is really not a time for pride or…" The blonde began.

"Pride?!" She snorted. "You believe me so petty, that I would refuse an order merely out of pride, or spite or… that I would put children's, innocent's lives…" She shook her head. "You don't know me Captain Rogers, you ought not judge me…" Her eyes narrowed a bit. "The children are safer here, with me, that they would be out there, until Malekith and the Chitauri have been defeated. You cannot guarantee their safety until the threat has been eliminated."

"And you can?" He was still doubting her.

The confirmation came in a most unexpected way, as a chitauri seemed to come out of nowhere; it'd shot straight at the daycare before Captain America could so anything about it, before he could even voice a warning. And yet none of it was necessary, the discharge that came from the alien's gun, impacted against something that was invisible at first sight, but when hit revealed ripples in the same white and lilac as the transparent film Rogers had seen earlier in between Nightingale's hands and the huge rock.

There was definitely a shield in place. And it wasn't only holding the caved-in roof away from the civilians, but it was also surrounding them, keeping them safe from attacks. He noticed something else a second later, as he turned to look at the young agent again: a drop of blood was falling from her nose. He didn't say a word about it, there was no need; he knew, instinctively, what it meant: they were running out of time.

Nightingale had felt that attack, as if it'd hit her on her own skin. Had felt the burn, just for a moment, but it was enough. She wouldn't be able to keep the shield up for much longer, time was running out.

"Everyone, I think we need to finish this battle, sooner rather than later." Captain America said seriously into his comm. "For all of our sakes."

"Guys." They weren't expecting to hear Darcy again. "Jane says that the portals are shifting. They can be closed… but they won't until the anchor keeping them open is gone."

"And let me guess, Malekith is that anchor." Hawkeye called in return.

"Bingo!" Darcy replied, with fake cheeriness.

"Then it's time to end this, once and for all." Thor stated, voice full of authority.

"We cannot get to Malekith until we've gotten rid of that monster." Sif reminded him.

"You leave him to me." Quake called with sudden conviction.

"I suggest you all brace yourselves." Maverick suggested.

They all did, and yet when the vibrations came, they were still more than most ever imagined possible; even those fighting blocks away from the main confrontation.

Those that were close enough could see the moment Maverick pulled all of the Kursed's attention onto him, keeping him busy with what appeared like an endless attack. Eventually the monster become completely furious, as well as blind to anything that isn't the man before him. That's its mistake, because Quake chooses that very moment to drop from a catwalk above him to land straight on the creature's shoulders. For a handful of seconds she looks like a cowgirl in a rodeo; holding onto the monster no matter how hard he tries to buck her off. She refuses to let go, no matter what, she won't lose.

The brunette lets out a wordless cry as she sits on what passes for the monster, taking hold of its head with both hands, and then she's pushing as much power as she can into it.

The earth shakes, not quite as violently as it did before the battle actually began; but that's because Quake's focus isn't the Earth on that moment, but the monster beneath her; which is shaking much more violently than the world ever has.

Iron Man comes to a realization right then: that young woman has enough power to cause an Earthquake that would probably be a straight out 9.5, possibly even higher (which, prehistoric and possibly biblical events aside, had never happened). She had all that power… and yet she hadn't gone crazy with it, or hurt anyone; she protected people, she was a hero… and he'd spent the last week calling her a weapon, treating her like a threat. Never mind that he hadn't known that Quake was a person. Tony Stark hardly ever regretted the way he treated other people, but in that moment he certainly did.

It took almost a full minute, when they all heard a very loud crack. Some couldn't help but think that was probably how a mountain would sound if it were to break. A moment later it was as if the Kursed had blown up.

However, it was not all good, no one (except probably Quake herself) had stopped to consider what effect her powers would have once she'd won. The Kursed broke into pieces and the remains of the energy blew up like an explosion, shooting not just the pieces of the monster but also the young woman herself, who crashed against a nearby building, a wall pretty much crumbling above her.

"Skye!" The voices of all but one Caterpillar called in horror.

"SISTER!" That was Maverick.

"'m a'right brother…" The gifted girl muttered as she managed with some effort to sit up.

The relief had barely been felt when she was falling limp to the side.

Maverick was by her side in an instant. A quick check revealed that she was alive, her pulse was there, but somewhat weak, she seemed to have some micro-fractures, judging by the contusions that could be seen on her skin (it wasn't the first time her powers turned against her). The truly worrying part were the holes in her flank, small, but all together bleeding heavily.

"Maverick!" Cavalry called in a demanding tone.

"She's alive, unconscious and hurt." Maverick enlisted. "Contusions, quite probably some micro-fractures in her hands and arms; and there are shrapnel wounds in her right flank."

"Trickster!" Sif called quietly as she went to kneel on the young agent's other side. "Go, deal with Malekith."

"She's my blood-sister…" Loki began, not taking his eyes off-her. "I must keep her safe…"

"I will make sure nothing happens to her." Sif assured him. "You need to go and help the others finish this battle. Only then can the healers be called."

The sorcerer knew she was right. Even if he didn't understand why Sif was being so kind and so accommodating. He'd his priorities straight: his match was busy and approaching the end of her endurance fast, judging by the way his own levels were being affected; their blood-sister was unconscious and badly hurt. The only way they'd get the help they needed was by ending the battle, and for that Malekith needed to die. It was an easy decision to make.

Thor seemed to be able to sense, somehow, the moment Maverick teleported to where he was trying to fight Malekith; he moved to the side just in time for the sorcerer to appear, a set of ice daggers already in hand and swiping in the dark elf's direction. Malekith managed to dodge the first knife, if barely, though the second nicked him on the neck before breaking. Loki didn't allow that to stop him, he threw the blade still in his hand at the villain, ignoring the shattering as he moved aside to allow for Thor to take a shot again, while conjuring a spear made of ice (such weapons were easier for him to call on, thanks to his Jotun blood, than metal ones).

Loki had long since moved past the fact that he was Jotun by birth, as well as the son of Laufey. His new family had helped him. It also helped that, as fact as Earth and humans were concerned, Frost Giants were non-entities, he was simply a man with a gift with ice, and he wasn't even the only one, so…

And so the battle went on.

 **xXx Nightingale's POV xXx**

I could feel the drop of blood as it slid down my chin, could even taste the hint of it from when it had passed my lips. At first one of the women working with the children had made sure to clean the drops of blood from my face every so often; but the longer we stayed there the more unsettled the children became, and their responsibility was to them more than it'd ever be to me. I was quite alright with that; in the end we were all there for the kids.

It was some time, but eventually I felt cloth on my chin, my lips, someone was cleaning me up. It still took me several seconds to realize someone was calling to me.

"Nightingale…? Agent Johnson…? Arianna!"

I blinked several times, fighting against the drowsiness that was ever so slowly taking me over, making sure the shield was still holding, before finally turning my attention to the figure standing right in front of me:

"B-obbi…" It took me a moment or so to find my voice, my mouth was dry. "Wha-t a… what are you doing here?"

"Darcy told us about the children." The blonde agent commented before offering me some water. "Some of us decided we just needed to come and help."

"Too dangerous…" I began.

"Not so much anymore." The Mockingbird assured me. "Most of the aliens have been eliminated already. We have FitzSimmons's dwarves with us, to help warn us in case of a threat, and a dozen agents, including Lance, Trip, Darcy, Phil and myself ready to defend the children."

I noticed someone else as she said that, someone she hadn't mentioned, standing at the back of the group, watching me with a quiet intensity that was very characteristic of him. I didn't say a word to him, just looking away, as if I'd never seen him; it was better, for all of us, that way.

It took me a moment longer to fully process the implication of everything that had just been said. Apparently at some point I began focusing so deeply on the shield, on keeping it up, on making my energy last as long as possible… that I'd completely lost track of time and reality. That wasn't a good thing. Even if it'd allowed me to last longer, anything could have happened, to my team, my friends, my family… and I wouldn't have known.

I was about to call on my comm. for the Caterpillars to report when I was distracted by Darcy's arrival.

"Hey girl!" She called, going to stand right beside me. "What do you say we take these children off your hands and get them to safety?"

"They're too many, you will need to make two, maybe three trips." I pointed.

"I know." Darcy nodded. "We're ready."

I let a beat or so pass, before speaking again.

"Hurry Darcy…" I said very softly. "I don't know how much longer I can hold on…"

"I know girl…" Her voice turned very quiet as she said that, I could only imagine how I must look in that moment, judging by the concern in her expression. "It's almost over. I promise."

They divided the children as necessary, one of the nurses going with each of the groups. It took a little while, but eventually there were just half a dozen children and one adult left; and only because the previous group had been too numerous already for them to go as well.

In the lapsed time I'd learnt of the recent developments, including my sister being injured in the aftermath of her defeating the Kursed; as well as the fact that my husband was working with Thor to bring down Malekith. I didn't like it; particularly I didn't like not being able to help them, but there was nothing I could do about that. I needed to focus on my own task…

"Nightingale watch out!"

I didn't know who issued the warning, but it came almost too late. The last supports of the building gave way and suddenly it was all coming upon me. There was no way I could hold up that much weight, not even if I'd been at a 100% (which I certainly wasn't). So I did the only thing I could, I expelled all the power I'd left, using it to throw the last people inside the building out; thankfully, they were already standing by the door, which helped. An instant later the shield vanished and a building fell on me.

 **xXx 3** **rd** **Person POV xXx**

"Cyborg!" May's voice boomed across the comms. "Get Maverick out of there now!"

It'd all happened so suddenly, that Thor hadn't known quite to do. One moment he was hearing the Captain America call that there was an Agent down, Agent Johnson… which seemed like a lot of bad luck, considering the other agent Johnson was down as well. The next instant the man by his side, codenamed Maverick had stumbled away from the fight for several steps before collapsing abruptly, like a puppet with the strings cut off.

Thor didn't understand what was going on, but he knew that whatever it was, it wasn't good. So, after seeing the enhanced man taking the body of the unconscious black-haired agent over his shoulder, the Asgardian prince threw himself once again into battle.

The battle didn't last much longer, thankfully. Thor and Maverick fighting together had managed to weaken the dark-elf enough that with a few more well-placed attacks, the villain was down.

"The portal is closing!" Several voices called at the same time.

"So are the ones in China, Russia and Sokovia." Cyborg informed them, just having received the information himself.

"We won…" Several voices murmured in a mix of joy a relief.

"Well, don't just stand there people!" Melinda May seemed to decide it was the moment to take charge of things. "The Johnsons need medical attention, pronto!"

Everyone got moving instantly. The Warriors Three had, thankfully, already been working on moving all the debris. They'd found Arianna at the bottom, body curled into a fetal position, and surprisingly enough, aside from an obvious injury to the back of her head and marks of earlier wounds on other parts of her body, she seemed to be alright. No broken bones, no major injuries. Even the blow to the head, Phil checked her over, having some first-aid training, and after a couple of minutes announced that aside from a concussion, nothing seemed to be wrong.

Daisy was a bit worse for wear. Sif had managed to staunch the bleeding some, but she'd still lost a considerable amount of blood and would need to be treated soon.

"Someone would like to explain how he ended unconscious?" Iron Man demanded as he landed.

He'd seen the man collapse and couldn't help but freeze, with Rogers in his ear calling for one Agent down, and then seeing another, he hadn't know where to go, what to do. He hated that. And, as was usual, Tony Stark hid his fear behind sarcasm and irritating quips.

The Cavalry opened her mouth as if to say something, then closed it, instead turning to look at Pietro, who was carrying the unconscious Quake while his sister watched from the side, Cyborg was still carrying Maverick, and May herself refused Sif's help before picking Nightingale up. It wasn't like she needed any help, the girl was way too light, had always been, and May had never been sure if it was because of the blood cancer or something else altogether. It wasn't like it'd ever mattered much either.

"They're bound, aren't they?" The words, surprisingly enough, came from Thor.

Most looked at him oddly; all but two people: Sif, whose expression showed she was beginning to connect the dots, probably more of them than they would prefer; and May, who went stiff.

"I wasn't sure at first." Thor went on. "But it's so obvious now. The way they fight, the way they move, even the way they stand in relation to each other. That's why he collapsed… because she was knocked unconscious."

"What does one thing have to do with the other?" Stark demanded, angry because he couldn't understand what was going on.

"They're married." Rogers offered, he remembered that particular conversation with Agent Johnson in the helicarrier.

"I am married!" Stark snapped, offended. "Doesn't mean I'm gonna swoon if Pepper does. Not that Pepper has ever swooned… exactly, but still."

"No, you don't understand…" Thor began, then broke off, seemingly unable to find the words to explain things.

"It goes beyond marriage." Sif clarified. "Or at least any form of marriage midgardians may know. Even beyond the usual asgardian marriages. It's an ancient ceremony very few enter nowadays." She made a pause, looking at the smaller Johnson and the black-haired sorcerer in turn. "We call the people who share such bonds a match; and they become one through the Ancient Vows. They're much like wedding vows, except they carry power, the kind that will bind two souls."

"Like a magical version of 'till death do you part'?" Banner (he'd stopped being the Hulk at some point) inquired, curious.

"More like 'to the end of time'." Sif corrected. "This kind of vow… it cannot be broken, not by time, or space, not even death. It will last until the universe comes to an end."

The shock that followed that revelation was absolute.

"Who in their sane minds would do something like that?" Lance Hunter blurted out before he could stop himself. "I mean, yeah man I certainly love my wife in this life, but who says I'll love her in the next?!"

"And who says she'll love you?!" Trip snorted.

Bobbi (the aforementioned wife) just rolled her eyes.

"That's why it's so rare." The grimmest of the Warriors 3, Hogun, stated quietly. "Few people are willing to make that sort of commitment. Even for one life, when it's one as long as ours, it can be a daunting prospect, to promise to love the same person for thousands of years…" He made a pause before adding: "It is said, however, that the rewards of entering such a bond are beyond anything that can be imagined."

Stark still didn't understand; in fact, most of those present didn't, though there was at least one who couldn't help but wonder…

 **xXx Nightingale's POV xXx**

The first thing I realized when I woke up, was that I wasn't home. I wasn't in any place I'd ever called home (which, at some point, had come to include not only the two Salani Manors, in Maine and in Wales, but also the apartment my sister and I'd shared while attending Norwich University in Vermont, the set of apartments the team shared in the Triskellion and on the Argonaut, as well as SHIELD's top-secret Retreat). So, I had no idea where I was, other than it was a bed in a big bedroom, a whole wall seemed to be made completely of glass. The only thing that kept me from going ballistic the moment I recovered consciousness, was the pair of jade green eyes looking straight into my own hazel ones. My Maverick was right there in bed with me. We'd both been stripped down to our underclothes and while neither of us knew where we were, we were together, anything else we could deal with…

The same thought entered our heads at the same time:

"Skye!" We cried out.

In less than a minute Loki had conjured pants for himself and a simple sundress for myself; and the fact that he couldn't conjure anything else was a graphic demonstration of just how weakened the two of us still were. Still we needed to find our sister and, knowing we wouldn't be able to teleport, we were soon out of the bedroom and looking around, following our respective connections to her.

We found her a couple of minutes later, drinking a cup of what looked like tea in a kitchen… she winced the moment her eyes laid on us.

"I'm sorry…" She began, apologetic. "I didn't think you'd wake up for an hour or so, yet."

"Are you alright?" I asked her, hurrying to her side. "You were hurt…"

"I was, as were you." She reminded me. "We're both alright now. Raina sent Galen to treat us, and anyone else that might need it."

I knew who Galen was, a young boy, Greek, one of the youngest Inhumans to have gone through terrigenesis, he was a healer, the best that had been seen in all of their history.

A lot had changed since Jiaying's passing. The Elders were no longer the ones to decide who would go through the change. Instead the option was opened to everyone who had proven they were mature enough to accept the change and deal with the consequences. The Elders could only stop a terrigenesis taking place when they'd proofed that a particular person was too unbalanced or something else. It hadn't happened yet.

"So, everything's alright then?" My love inquired, arms crossed across his chest, showing how much he didn't believe that.

Skye nodded, and I could see she was trying to work out what made him distrust that, aside from the obvious. I couldn't understand how even after that hell of a battle the Aesir hadn't realized who Maverick truly was; but they obviously hadn't, otherwise we'd have had a whole different conflict on our hands… which hadn't happened.

"If so, why aren't we home?" I challenged. "Why are we… here. Wherever here might be…"

"Stark Tower." Skye revealed with a sigh.

I had no words to reply to that, I mean, really?! We didn't like Stark (or at least we hadn't until… the day before) and suddenly we were staying at his place instead of our own (whichever of our places)? Something was very wrong with that…

"Why are we really here?" I insisted, finally. "Why aren't we at the Argonaut? Or the Triskellion? Or even the Retreat?"

"Because I'm here." A new, unexpected voice called from behind.

"Mama Kathryn!" Her name slipped from my lips before I fully processed what I was saying.

It was until then that I fully realized why that was so wrong. Mama Kathryn wasn't supposed to be there, she wasn't supposed to be anywhere near SHIELD, for our safety, but especially for her own. After all, as far as most of the world was concerned, she was dead.

It was one of the greatest tragedies to have ever happened in SHIELD. When the Co-Director, Kathryn Adler, the Sphinx, had been assassinated during a diplomatic mission with the heads of several intelligence agencies around the world. The group had met in Malta to discuss the most recent attempt to reform Hydra which had, again, been stopped by us (Caterpillars). The problem was that the government in that country refused to declare the people involved in the attempt, and Hydra as a whole, as terrorists, which granted them protection. It'd be until much later that the truth would come out, the fact that certain people in high echelons of society and with important political power in that country subscribed to the ideals of Hydra… the death of Ian Quinn had thrown a spanner into their plans, but it wouldn't be enough to stop them fully… and then came the assassinations.

As far as the world was concerned, half of the leaders present in that meeting had been killed. The only survivors having been those who either supported Hydra or had at least chosen to remain neutral. Director Adler (Mama Kathryn) had been listed among the deceased…

Reality, though, was a bit different. Because we (her family) had known the attack has coming, and we were prepared. Mama Kathryn had survived the attack, but was forced to fake her death. Awful as that was, the fact that she would have to keep the distance from us all, it was still better than the alternative. It'd also allowed her to go off-book as she found those responsible for the assassinations.

An investigation that had lasted over a year had eventually lead Mama Kathryn to the last person they could have ever expected. The one behind the latest attempt to rebuild Hydra… and quite possibly every attempt since Whitehall: Alexander Pierce…

Papa Nick hadn't believed it at first, refused to believe that the man who'd made him and Mama Kathryn directors, their friend, one of few people who'd been present at their wedding! (He'd been a witness, in fact), of the very few who knew about my sister and I, would do something like that: order Mama Kathryn's assassination, knowing what she meant to Papa Nick… yet there had just been too much overwhelming proof.

Mama Kathryn's own shock had been such that she'd made a mistake. Pierce had found her… and yet before he could finish the job, he was dead. Thanks to the help of one man, the last person Pierce ever expected to be on her side…

That had been a couple of years prior. A lot of protocols had been put in place to keep Pierce's death a secret, while Mama Kathryn took over from him as a way of keeping an eye on everyone that might be in on his dark plans. Since the World Security Council were big on secrecy and not being together anywhere, for their own safety, it wasn't hard to manage… until that moment.

As it happened Mama Kathryn simply loved us, her family, too much to stay away after what had happened in San Juan. She'd piloted a quinjet herself to the Argonaut (and given more than one person the scare of their lives). Papa Nicholas had sent her (and us) to Stark Tower in an attempt to keep us safe, as much as we might consider the helicarrier as one of our homes, we'd no way of knowing how much the people on-board could actually be trusted. We'd seen it happen before, good people doing bad things; all could be achieved with the right 'incentive'…

"I know this wasn't part of the plan." Mama Kathryn said after embracing both my husband and myself tightly. "But I just couldn't stay away, not after hearing what happened in Puerto Rico… the mere thought of you all injured… It was too much, I couldn't stay away anymore."

"It'll be alright, mama." Skye assured her with a smile. "It's not the end of the world." She grinned. "I mean, we're all alive right?"

"Right." We all nodded.

"Then we can deal with the rest." Skye decided.

And we would deal with it, there simply was no other acceptable option.

 **xXx Skye's POV xXx**

I don't believe in fairytales, never have, though I realize that there have been times when my life's seemed like one… either that or a bloody soap-opera.

 _I knew, by the time I was four years old, that life wasn't perfect, and that children's stories were just that, lies told to children, none of them true. I'd been moved from foster family to foster family every two or three months… the one time I'd dared call a woman mom I was sent back to St. Agnes the next day. The bottom-line: no one wanted me. I didn't even know where I came from, had no birth-certificate aside from the one St. Agnes had given me after some unknown woman left me with them._

 _And then she appeared: Ms. Salani was unlike any woman I might have met before. She told me straight out that she knew SHIELD was responsible for me ending at St. Agnes, and that while the Agent to leave me there, had done so with the intention of keeping me safe from some terrible tragedy that had happened in the place of my birth, in the Hunan Province, in China… she could see I wasn't happy. So she offered me another option: to join her family. I said yes, of course I did, and as thankful as I was for what she'd told me of my own past, I didn't fully believe that she would be any different from all the other foster mothers I'd had to that point, that she might want to keep me._

 _Silbhé was… a surprise. When Ms. Salani signed my papers she'd told me I'd have a sister, but I never expected someone who could have been my twin. She was barely five or so months older than me, and so small she actually seemed younger at first sight. It wasn't the first time I had a foster sister, but the first time she liked me. And I liked her… She was my first true friend._

 _Three months later, the greatest shock: Silbhé was sick. I'd known for a while that something had to be wrong, it couldn't be normal for a girl our age to be getting sick all the time. And then a doctor said it: leukemia… cancer. For a wild moment I shook with fear, wondering if I'd be blamed for it. It'd happened before, with another foster family. One of the girls in the house had had bad food poisoning and I was blamed for it, though I never truly understood why._

 _I could see the doubt in Mr. Salani (I later found out that wasn't actually his name) at the idea of keeping me in that moment. I was expecting it already, of course they'd rather focus on their real daughter… and then, what I wasn't expecting. Silbhé practically wrapped herself around me, refusing to let me go. Calling me her sister… It became official a few days later; and I decided a new life deserved a new name: I became Skye Kinross-Salani._

 _I took my place as sister very seriously. Silbhé might be older than me, but she was sick, and so I did all I could to look after her. Make sure she ate, slept as much as she needed to, took her medicines; I did my best to distract her when she was feeling badly, and it was no burden, I enjoyed it. I had a family, what wasn't there to enjoy?_

 _I was about to turn nine when the news were official: Silbhé'd gone into remission. She wasn't exactly healed, but certainly much better than she'd been in almost five years, and I was thankful for that. By that point I'd also learnt some of the family truths: like the fact that Ms. Salani wasn't truly Silbhé's mom, but her paternal aunt, that her parents had died in the lapse of a year, in awful circumstances, that both Ms. Salani and her husband were spies (and didn't that inspire hundreds of fantasies in my child-mind…)._

 _A year after Silbhé went into remission, our training began. At first it was only because Mama and Papa (they'd chosen me, so of course they were my mama and papa) insisted Silbhé and I ought to know how to defend ourselves; though soon enough we decided we wanted to be just like them: agents… heroes._

 _There were a few hiccups along the way, of course. Like when we were eleven and an alien-prince appeared in our garden. I didn't know at first, it'd been one of the few times I'd left my sister on her own (she just loved so much sitting in the rose-patch, in our garden, while I much preferred losing myself a bit in computers, even at that age). Still, she told me everything, about that first quick meeting, then when the Chinese flute appeared for her (which made sounds like those of her favorite birds, the nightingales), and then when she finally convinced him to agree to meet me._

 _We were sisters, and the best of friends, there had never been any secrets between us. And yet we told our parents nothing. Oh, they knew there was a boy, called Luka, who'd sometimes drop by and play with us for a little while… but they never actually met him. They were busy, working with SHIELD, it wasn't rare for Silbhé and I to be on our own. We never felt bad about that._

 _Then Silbhé turned fourteen, and the cancer returned. Those were the three most terrifying months of my life. I always knew she wouldn't agree to the harsher treatments, that she wouldn't want to spend her last months in a bed, in hospital, away from her roses and the nightingales… still, I refused to just give up. I was still just learning to hack, to crack systems, yet that didn't stop me. I got tips from everyone I could, particularly a girl whose screen-name was TaserQueen, she was talented, and when she learnt why I wanted to learn to hack, she helped me a lot. I hacked the bases of every lab I could think of, trying to find something that might save Silbhé, or at least give her more time…_

 _In the end it was Loki (Luka's real identity) who saved us all. I have to admit I hadn't fully believed that he was a god, from a world called Asgard… I knew he was gifted, but then again he wasn't the only one. And then I saw the bracelets he'd created… I saw my sister smiling at me, when just the night before I'd been so sure she wouldn't wake up again (I'd cried myself to sleep thinking that). I never doubted him again after that._

 _We didn't tell mama and papa what had saved Silbhé, letting them just see it as a miracle. We didn't think they'd understand, especially not papa. He didn't like gifted people… which wasn't really surprising considering the things that people like Magneto and his Brotherhood had done over the years._

 _I was 11 going on 12 when I underwent the ritual that made Silbhé and I blood-sisters. Of course, back then it'd seemed a bit like some good fun, a bit like a way of making a promise to ourselves and to each other that we'd always be sisters… I was 16 going on 17 when I realized that ritual had done more than just left a scar on the palm of my hand, and that I truly loved Silbhé as a sister, more than anyone else who could claim to be my family, including my birth-parents. (Years later I'd undergo the ritual yet again, making Loki my blood-brother; they became my truest family, the only I'd ever need.)_

 _It'd begun easy enough, when we were 16. We'd gotten our bachelor degrees (two each), and we'd finished our training. We were ready to join our parents in SHIELD, be agents… Papa said no. Silbhé said that it was normal, he was being overprotective, was afraid of sending us out on a mission and having something happen to us… but I had been training for too long, had been wishing and dreaming of being an agent for too long to be reasonable. My sister knew that, and so we made a plan, a way of proving our parents we were ready to be Agents of SHIELD…_

 _It was until the two of us, and a girl called Raina we met in our travels, found ourselves trapped inside a sealed, underground temple in San Juan Puerto Rico, that I admitted we probably weren't as ready as I wanted to believe we were, and that things might not be as simple as they'd seemed when we first decided to solve the cold-case that had brought me first to St. Agnes, and eventually into the Kinross-Salani family…_

 _When I first met my birth-parents… it probably wasn't ideal, my sister was hurt, I was suddenly a gifted, and I wasn't quite sure which of them terrified me more. And yet, they were my parents, they had the answers to so many questions I'd been asking myself my whole life. And of course things had to go wrong. I didn't notice at first. I believed them when they told me that Silbhé was still recovering, and I could use that time getting to know my parents, and my peers. There was a boy who'd recently gone through the mist, just like us, though in more controlled circumstances. His name was Lincoln and he was kind of my mother's protégé. I liked him, he taught me a lot about being Inhuman, about that place, Afterlife; almost as much as my mother did…_

 _When Raina first told me that something was wrong, I didn't believe her. My father had warned me that she wasn't a good person, and I'd already seen how obsessed she was with the gifted and being one herself. Something that wasn't helped by her own change, or the fact that said change included having her whole body covered in thorns. And yet, eventually I could see it, the way everyone kept doing all they could to put distance between me and my sister. I didn't know if it was the fact that they didn't trust SHIELD, that they were too xenophobic (ironic considering that we were the ones with alien blood…) or if they were simply beyond jealous of the connection I had with Silbhé._

 _When the moment came to make my choice, however, when my so-called mother threatened my sister, the decision was easy to make. I chose the person who'd been by my side, unconditionally, for the last thirteen years… then I called to the sky, using the words Loki had taught me, calling to him for help. He got us out of there and back home._

 _The aftermath was a mess, though good things came from it too. Papa loved us, I'd always known that, and yet in that moment, with him accepting gifted, because we were such, accepting Loki without hesitation, because he'd saved Silbhé, and later all the things to keep us safe, and which would eventually help many others like us… that was when I truly saw his own choice being made, the moment he chose us above everything he'd supported and believed in for decades, above SHIELD._

 _There were more consequences of course. We needed to stay in the Retreat for months as we got used to all the ways things had changed since the terri-genesis, particularly our powers. And, if that weren't enough, we entered a confrontation against a crazy-scientist called Whitehall, who'd taken Lincoln and was using him as a lab-rat. We, of course, couldn't allow that, and I think my birth-parents might have been counting on that. They took advantage of it, the moment my sister stepped away from me to help our friend, Gordon took me._

 _I was absolutely livid by the time I made it to Afterlife, and only the fact that the teleportation left me more than a bit dizzy kept me from taking the whole place down in my fury. In the end it wasn't necessary, my so-called mother was just getting into her stride, spinning a story about how I'd survived against all odds with Whitehall and the wannabe-Hydra minions around… when my sister suddenly stepped out of my shadows, ready to do battle, and she wasn't alone, Lincoln was with her too._

 _That was the first time I killed. When Gordon used my sister's distraction to try and kill her, I knew I needed to protect her, to stop him, and I only had one chance… I couldn't hesitate, and couldn't hold back. He was dead in an instant. That was just the start, everyone went absolutely crazy and soon we were all fighting for our lives._

 _Later on Loki explained to me that my mother, Jiaying, had no soul. Whitehall (or whatever his name might have been at the time) had killed her back when I was a baby, and while my father's intervention and her own power allowed her to recover, her soul was long gone back then. Without a soul she couldn't truly reason, or feel, she just followed the instincts that had ruled her at the time of her 'death': the fear to Whitehall and Hydra (which had somehow extended to include SHIELD), the companionship with my father, and the need to get me back… Still, none of that could ever make me forget the fact that my birth-mother tried to kill me; or the moment when my sister stepped in between us, a human shield. Jiaying tried to use her power against Silbhé, but she simply had no idea who she was going against, or whose protection my sister had. Her attempt at killing my sister, meant her own death in the end._

 _Then my father died. The drugs he'd used on himself, to make himself faster stronger and better able to face against other gifted, it also destroyed him. I cannot say I love him, not really; Nick Fury is my papa, and he will always be… and yet if it weren't for Carl Johnson I probably would have never been born… I also realized he loved me, and he'd loved my mother, he just hadn't been able to show it the right way. The last thing he gave me, the one I never expected, was my name, the name he'd given me at birth and which I hadn't known: Daisy Johnson. It became part of me, as both my middle-name and the alternate identity I began using as an agent._

 _It was something we discovered once we went back home. Everyone knew what had happened in the Arctic, with Whitehall and his group. There was no way to hide that we'd been responsible for that. And so we got what we wanted in the end, my sister and I became agents, with the names of Arianna and Daisy Johnson…_

 _Some people say our choices change our lives, every choice… I made the choice to be a Kinross-Salani, to be an Agent, and then to be a Caterpillar… I know that if I'd chosen different in any of those occasions, my life would have been entirely different, and as hard as some things might be, I cannot regret it._

 _I especially cannot regret the fact that it brought me to the love of my life…_

I felt more than actually heard the moment the sliding door into my temporary bedroom opened. It'd been a couple of days since the battle(s) and Stark had given us free-reign of what, according to the blueprints had once been one of the guest-apartments… each actually spanned a whole floor. We Caterpillars, with the addition of Mama, were sharing the 78th floor in that moment. Each of the Avengers (with the particular exception of Clint and Natasha and Darcy and Phil who, as married couples shared) had been given a floor of their own as well. I'd also heard that the Warriors Three had returned to Asgard with the Tesseract, while Thor and Sif had chosen to stay for a while longer.

Their decision made me nervous and I knew I wasn't the only one. We were all waiting to see if they'd discovered Maverick's true identity or not… at first it'd seemed like not, and yet… Loki was my brother, had been for a long while (officially only for the last five years, but in my mind and heart he'd been such at least since he'd saved my sister against all hope); as such, I couldn't believe someone could call him brother and then not recognize him.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" A male, husky voice called, its owner standing just inside the room, the door having already closed behind him. "I thought we weren't supposed to meet anywhere that hadn't been completely secured by all of you."

"We've secured this place." I informed him calmly, without leaving my place beside the window, eyes on the city outside. "I warned both Stark and JARVIS the moment I learnt we were staying here for an indeterminate amount of time. The moment you pressed our floor number my programs kicked in. I get the dump of all the feeds in this floor, not Stark." I couldn't help but smile. "So, he has you entering the elevator, he can probably guess what floor you ended up on, since you disappeared and all that… but it's not like there isn't a perfectly good reason for you to be here. Everyone who helped us in San Juan has been by to see us at least once; or if not Silbhé and I, they've come to see mama, to see if she's truly alive…"

"I wasn't expecting that one." He admitted quietly, finally walking into the room.

"None of us were." I assured him.

"It might make things harder in the long run." He pointed out.

"It might." I agreed. "But we'll deal with it." I shrugged. "In any case, I didn't call you here to talk about my mother, or about your secret mission, I called you here…"

That was about as far as I got with my rant, as I suddenly found myself being spun around and immediately afterwards pressed against the wall, right beside the window, a pair of strong hands holding me in place as a mouth practically ravaged mine.

My reaction was immediate as I wound my arms around his neck, kissing him for all I was worth. I'd hated, having to see him standing at the back of the groups, unable to approach, unable to touch. I'd almost died… both my sister and I had, and while she had the comfort of having her match by her side, his hand seemingly always in hers… I couldn't have the same. Couldn't because the love of my life was busy working a top-secret mission (so top-secret there were no records of it anywhere, and only five people even knew the mission even existed). He was a great agent, and one day he'd probably be a hero… but in that moment I hated that I couldn't just go to him and kiss him silly whenever I wanted. It was extremely frustrating.

Hopefully that would come to an end someday… hopefully the mission would end and we'd be alright, finally allowed to walk in public hand in hand, to kiss if we so wished, to have the world see how much we loved each other…

"Robot…" The nickname came out of my lips in a half-groan, half-moan as his mouth sucked on my neck, my whole body growing hotter at the contact.

"There's that blasted nickname again." He pretended to be annoyed, though I couldn't help but think he just looked too cute. "You'll never let go of it, will you?"

"No." I smiled mischievously at him, I knew he didn't mind the nickname as much as he pretended to. Still my voice turned a tad more solemn, and a lot more heartfelt as I added. "I'm never letting you go."

No, I was never letting go of my Robot. It was hard enough, for our relationship to be what it was in that moment, a secret that at times seemed even more tightly guarded than his mission as a double-agent. Except I hoped (we all did) that his mission would come to an end someday, hopefully soon, and in that same vein I hoped our relationship wouldn't, ever.

It wasn't easy, having a lover almost no one knows even exist. We couldn't go out on dates, could only meet in the utmost secrecy and every once in a while. My pessimistic side also reminded me that if something ever happened to him I probably wouldn't know, because as far as most of the world was concerned, I was nothing to him…

Except he was everything to me. I still remembered the first time I'd seen him. Natasha pointed him out to us as a candidate for the Caterpillars, mentioning how good his scores were… but we were still finding ourselves as a team, and we weren't sure most agents were ready to work with gifted like us. We also knew that he preferred working solo.

Months later he almost got killed in a black ops mission and we happened to be in the area, managed to save his life. It all went well, except for the part where he remembered more than he should have (considering he'd been shot and half bleeding out at the time), he'd also noticed more than we'd have preferred, from someone we didn't know. He asked his colleagues about us, and when that didn't work, began investigating us himself.

I would complain about it, especially about all the things he ended finding out (I hadn't fully coded all our files back then, a few things were still in the servers, reports on a number of our missions, including the comments Hawkeye and Black Widow had made after what had happened in Budapest); except, if it weren't for him, we probably wouldn't have found out about the plot to assassinate mama on time. He was the one who found out, he saved her life…

That was what got me interested in him in the first place. At first it was a matter of pride, wanting to know what kind of man could find so much about us, and about a plot against my mother, when none of us had discovered it before (when so much could have gone so wrong if he hadn't known, hadn't been there). The more I learnt about him, the more I liked him.

Our ending up in bed wasn't exactly planned. He'd had another mission, it ended badly. It was completely coincidental that I was there after he finished his report. I could see there was something wrong with him… felt this unexpected need to help him, somehow. Hours later we'd finished a bottle of very good vodka (courtesy of Natasha), and had drunken sex in my bunk. I considered leaving in the morning, before he woke up (I'd been out for drinks with Natasha before, had learnt how to hold my liquor), but it somehow didn't seem right; it was probably one of the best decisions I ever made (right up there with the two times I chose my sister, and when I offered Loki to become his blood-sister as well).

I knew we couldn't have the kind of relationship most people would expect, we both did. It was simply too dangerous, for both of us; as it would have made me a target, as well as his pressure point, and that couldn't be allowed. However, I refused to give up completely, there was just something about him… even years later I couldn't tell what exactly it was.

So we went down the road of the secret relationship. My parents didn't like it, Papa especially was quite vocal about it, and I know mama believed it wouldn't last long, that we wouldn't be able to take the strain… but we did. I just know our relationship isn't like most. We're committed, both to our missions and to each other. Things won't be easy, but we'll do it, because what we have is worth any sacrifice, any effort, any fight…

So, in the end I might not really believe in fairy-tales… but I still hope I… we, will get to have our happy ending…

 **xXx Nightingale's POV xXx**

There was a number of agents walking around in what made the sitting-room of our apartments. Most of them were there to see Mama Kathryn, since none other than us family had known she was alive. Even then no one knew what had happened exactly, two years ago. It was better that way, for everyone involved.

"Silbhé…?" I heard a male voice calling behind me.

"Lincoln!" I wasn't expecting him.

Somehow, despite the fact that Skye had told me Galen was around, and that it was obvious the Inhumans would never let him leave Afterlife alone, not only because he was too valuable, but also because he was so young and innocent and needed to have someone to protect him, and who better than one of the two leaders of their people?

"How are you?" I asked him as the surprise passed. "How did things go in China?"

"Those aliens were no threat to the full might of our people." He assured me. "Thanks to Raina's warnings we were prepared before their arrival, the children and elders were sent to a secondary location for their protection while the rest of us handled the battle." He let out a breath. "Raina, of course, refused to go with the Elders, I thought they were going to have a fit, at the prospect of both of us being at the front-lines… and yet we wouldn't be dissuaded. In the end her presence saved several lives with last second warnings…"

"That's good." I nodded. "I'm glad you are all doing alright."

It was almost odd, to think of the Inhumans as allies after our rocky beginnings… after all, Jiaying had tried to kill me every single time we'd seen each other, and only my bond to Loki had saved me in the end. However, nothing could be more shocking than our good friendship with Raina, considering how she'd been when we'd first met her. So obsessed with what she could become, with her own destiny, I cringed to think how far she might have gone… maybe it was a good thing that we'd all ended in that temple in San Juan when we did.

"I'm looking for Skye…" The blonde said, looking around.

"Oh…" I couldn't help but scratch the back of my head as I tried, and fail, to think of a good way to explain things. "I'm afraid that my sister is… otherwise engaged at the moment."

Beside me my beloved snorted, though thankfully only inside our heads. Lincoln really didn't need to hear him and realize what I was trying to be polite about… and I really didn't need to think about my sister having sex!

"Raina wanted me to give her a message, said it was of vital importance." Lincoln explained. "And those are her words, not mine."

A message from one of the most powerful precogs in our world? I shivered only thinking about it.

"If you cannot wait for her, you may give me the message, I promise to share it with her when I see her later today." I offered.

"The plane to China leaves in an hour, so I really cannot stay." Lincoln shrugged slightly. "I probably should have tried to find her earlier, but after making sure Galen was alright your parents insisted on a debrief, and then offered to allow me to sit in the debriefs of the team-leaders for the other battles…"

"It's alright, I understand." I assured him.

"Your duty to your people comes first." Maverick added, perfectly calm. "It's how it should be, with a leader such as yourself."

"You know, there are days I wish Skye had made a different choice, she should be the leader of the Inhumans, not Raina and I." Lincoln admitted almost wistfully. "Then there are days when I cannot imagine myself doing anything other than what I am right now… There was a time when I thought I'd one day be a doctor, dedicate myself to looking after others. And I suppose in a way I'm doing that, and yet at the same time I'm managing so much more…"

"Things are the way they're supposed to be." Loki stated.

"You and Raina are the right people for the job, Lincoln, you always were." I assured him. "You know Skye wouldn't have stayed, not after everything that happened… and I'm not talking just about Jiaying. You know the Inhumans in ways she… we never will. And Raina… well we both know how things are on that end. My sister… she's an agent, that's what we've both wanted to be since we were ten years old… Maybe things would have been different, if she'd never been taken as a baby, if my family had never adopted her… but I cannot say I regret it either. She's my sister and I love her."

"Each of you… each of us," My match corrected himself after a beat. "We are where we're meant to be. Never doubt that."

Lincoln nodded, seemingly gaining more confident just from our confidence.

"Still, don't forget to visit sometime, I'm sure some people would love to see you again." The blonde told us. "Raina and I certainly would love to."

"You said there was a message…" Loki reminded him, just in case.

"Yes, of course." Lincoln seemed to take a moment to focus hard before he began reciting: "Out of the shadows and into the light, the seven headed snake will rise. The Knight and the Princess, together the darkness will fight, warriors in gray against a centennial enemy's might. Bullets and blades, blood and tears, only the Songstress's favor can change the dark tide."

Neither my love nor I had the slightest idea what to say to that. The beginning was obvious enough, the mission Skye's lover was involved in would come to a head… of course Skye would be involved, it was only to be expected… and yet, I had no idea what to think about the last line. A fight? Death? Grief? But of whom? I refused to even contemplate the idea of losing my sister to death, and while her lover wasn't exactly a friend, I knew she loved him deeply… what then could any of us do to help? I had no idea, but I knew simply letting things be wasn't an option, it would never be.

*We'll find a way.* My match assured me in the privacy of our bond. *No matter what happens, we'll always be there for our sister, and for those she loves. Always.*

*Always.* I agreed wholeheartedly.

 **xXx**

The moment we'd all been waiting for came later than I'd expected, though sooner than I'd hoped (though considering a part of me kept hoping the moment would never come, I suppose any time would have been too soon).

We were in our floor, my sister and I sat side by side on the bench of the piano Stark had had brought to us (and how exactly he knew I played I hadn't the slightest idea...), Skye had her own guitar and were practicing some tunes, nothing formal, not quite. We'd had visitors earlier, as had become pretty common in the weeks since we'd been leaving there, but most had already left by that point. It actually took me a ridiculous amount of time to realize that there were only two 'guests' left in the floor, and just who they were: Thor and Sif.

It was the tension in my match that gave it away. Skye realized what was going on the moment I stopped following her accords. And then mama Kathryn turned our way from her spot on the living room, when she noticed the sudden silence.

"Is there anything else you need?" My husband asked, concealing his anxiety behind a mask of easy politeness.

"I would like to talk to you." The blonde Asgardian stated a bit hesitantly.

"If this is concerning your return to Asgard, shouldn't you be talking to Stark, or Rogers?" Loki suggested blankly. "They're part of your team after all."

"I wish to talk to you," Thor insisted. "And the topic is a bit more personal than that."

"I don't see what kind of personal topic of conversation we could have in common..." Loki insisted, his edges beginning to show.

"I think we both know that's not true, brother..." And there it was, the moment of truth.

Silence was thick and heavy for a handful of seconds that seemed to last forever, only to be broken in the most unexpected manner...

"I knew it!" Skye cried out unexpectedly, before dissolving into giggles.

"What...?!" We all turned to look at her.

"I knew there was no way someone could call you brother at some point, and later on fail to recognize you, no matter how much you appeared to have changed, brother." Skye explained, purposefully emphasizing the word 'brother' more the second time. "You're kinda unique in every way, you know?"

"I know." Loki smiled at her warmly before turning dubious eyes to the Aesir. "So you've discovered me then, what do you expect to gain from that?"

"Are you happy, Loki?" The blonde inquired quietly.

The question took us all by surprise, especially me. I'd been so ready for a fight. I didn't even notice it but at some point I'd teleported from the piano bench to my match's side, and a hand was already on the concealed blade I always carried with me (a lesson Natasha had imparted: never, ever, be unarmed).

"I am." My love finally answered, after what seemed like forever. "I have a wife and a sister, I have friends, a team that trusts me to have their backs, on and off the battlefield... I have everything I could have ever wished for..."

And he'd found it away from Asgard, away from the brother who claimed to love him yet hadn't truly understood him in hundreds of years... I could see the moment the realization and then the acceptance filled the blonde, the pain in his eyes...

"That's all I've ever wanted." Thor whispered after the longest time. "I may never have been the brother you needed, or deserved, but I did love you Loki, I still do."

For a moment no one moved, and then my love nodded. It probably wasn't what the blonde would have preferred... but Loki wasn't going back to Asgard, we all knew that, and even Thor accepted it. Perhaps, in time, we could all be friends.

"And you Sif?" My love asked, turning to the goddess of war with challenge in his eyes.

"Me...?" She shrugged. "You remind me of someone I knew a thousand years ago, a friend... but it's been so long, I might have confused you with someone else."

There was something about her words, beyond the insinuation that she wouldn't be saying anything about my Maverick's true origins, but I couldn't fully grasp what it might be. I was missing something, and wasn't sure I liked it... then, for a fraction of a second I got a crazy idea, of a younger, golden haired Sif, laughing with my love, as if they were the best of friends... I pushed it aside almost as soon as it came, the mere thought was absolutely insane.

It would be several years and over a century's worth of memories later that I realized some things weren't quite as insane as they might first seem...

We didn't come out of that meeting being all friends, or anything like this, such a thing would have been impossible. But we knew that Thor and Sif knew the truth, and were willing to let us be. A part of me wondered if they'd still be thinking that when they learnt the truth about the Inhumans... they might not have any interest in being cannon-fodder for the Kree war (something we all agreed with), but there was no way of knowing how understanding the Aesir might be... I didn't hold much hope for Odin, after the way he'd (mis)treated my love.

 **xXx**

At the end of the summer things seemed to finally improve enough for us to leave Stark's Tower (which had been officially renamed as Avenger's Tower). Thor moved in, along with his intended, Dr. Jane Foster, on the same day we were moving out (the floor would remain ours, according to Stark, in case we ever needed a place to stay in New York).

I wasn't that surprised when he approached us right as we were about to leave, what I wasn't expecting, was when he went straight to me, instead of Loki. He embraced me, tightly for a human, yet so very carefully for someone with his strength, almost as if I were made of spun-glass or something equally fragile.

"Thor!" Both our matches called at the same time in a mix of shock and disbelief.

"Congratulations..." He told me with a most heartfelt smile, before placing a small cloth-bag in my hands. "Mother sends you this..."

Loki went to stand beside me, I could sense he was as confused by the whole thing as I was. And then I opened the bag and let the contents fall onto the palm of my hand. It was a piece of red cord, shaped into a bracelet, with an amber stone. The thing that struck me, though... it was much too small to fit me. It was actually barely big enough for a...

I almost dropped the gift as I brought both hands to my mouth in an attempt to drown the gasp as a instinct inside me connected the dots.

My beloved didn't say a word, his right hand was suddenly on my belly and I could feel his magic probing inside me; more importantly, I could sense, through him, the moment it connected with another energy...

"Oh Spirits!" I couldn't drown the exclamation the second time.

I was pregnant... I was pregnant and Lady Frigg knew... Lady Frigg knew about the baby, which meant she knew about me, and about my Maverick... and suddenly it was just too much. I almost blacked out. Was only half aware as my husband scooped me into his arms and carried me to the living room, Thor and Jane following. Jane sounded particularly cross as she berated Thor for springing something like that on us without warning, and how exactly had he known I was pregnant when apparently we hadn't?

"I'm alright..." I whispered after several seconds. "It was just a bit of a shock."

"Are you sure?" Jane asked quietly. "I'm sorry that he sprung that on you. If I'd known that was his intention..."

"It's quite alright." I assured her, assured them both. "It's probably a good thing I know now, before I go back to the field or something. Spirits know how long it'd have taken me to realize I was pregnant if it weren't for... this."

After the cancer, and the fact that it was still in my blood... I'd been warned by my doctor of the likelihood (or lack thereof) of ever having children. It was something both Loki and I'd known and accepted even before getting married. Which was why the idea of me being pregnant took us so much by surprise, except...

"I think I've seen her." I blurted out before I could stop myself.

"What?" No one was expecting that, not even my match.

"The dream I had last night." I told them quietly. "I can only remember pieces of it, sort of like snapshots or something... I remember a red-haired baby in a little white dress, a little girl with auburn hair and chocolate eyes in a flowered dress and a green sweater, sitting in my rose-garden, a teenager with long dark auburn hair and eyes of an impossible color, in a red and white dress, surrounded by fire..."

"Do you have the Sight?" Thor asked me, curious.

"I... no." I shook my head. "Not at all. And yet, I've also never remembered my dreams with such clarity, even if they're just snippets..."

There was no way to know for sure, but my instincts told me I was right, I'd seen my daughter, the very same I was carrying in that moment, my baby girl, my...

"Rose..." I breathed out the moment I thought it.

Loki nodded, knowing immediately what I was thinking, though Thor and Jane seemed a bit lost.

"That will be her name," I elaborated. "Rose Salani-Hvedrungr."

 **xXx 3** **rd** **Person POV xXx**

Months passed, and a great many things began changing, slowly at first, and faster later on. Ace had been getting into trouble, both at school and around home; Mike feared that it might be because of his constant absence, and asked for some leave so he might be closer to his boy, be there for him. Ace was a teenager, and a boy his age needed his father, after all. Silbhé and Skye stood and told him to take as long as he needed.

That was just the start.

The Caterpillars got a particularly interesting visit from the leaders of the X-Men, shortly after returning to their secret base, which had a top secret number in SHIELD's databases, but most people called simply 'The Cocoon'. At first the sisters had thought the two men were there to talk in person about the recent alien invasion. There had thankfully been no loses among their people, though the girls had heard that Rogue had gone so deeply into the feral mindset it took a few days for her to fully get back out, and Phoenix had exhausted herself so much she was in a near-coma for almost a week. Yet afterwards everyone had been just fine.

As it turned out, and while Xavier was quite interested in coordinating some training sessions between the different teams, Lehnsherr had something else in mind: the twins. Pietro and Wanda Maximoff... there was something about them that seemed to almost pain the mutant. In the end it was Charles who explained: Erik'd had a wife at one point, many years earlier: Magda Maximoff, whom he'd met in the camps, in the forties, and been married to for a little over five years. She'd given him three children: a girl, who died shortly before her fifth birthday, in a fire, while they were living in Ukraine. And then there were the twins, Erik hadn't even known about them until they were in their twenties. They'd gone missing sometime during the 80's and by the early nineties were presumed dead. The crucial detail? They had the exact same names and powers as Pietro and Wanda.

It took a while to negotiate that one. But after pushing Magneto into accepting that whatever odd miracle might have happened, they most definitely weren't the same twins he'd known in the past; they agreed to spend some time in Westchester, getting to know both men as well as their team. It was a good plan, all things considered.

Then came Silbhé's pregnancy. While the decision to keep her off the field was made from the moment they all knew what was going on, neither of them realized that wouldn't be enough until near the end of her first trimester. After a fainting spell and a near-miscarriage, the pregnancy was declared high-risk. One of the doctors had gone as far as suggesting termination, for the mother's own health, but Silbhé refused even thinking about it.

Privately Thor assured them that if Nightingale kept the little charmed-bracelet her mother had spun, it would help keep both her and the baby safe. However, it was better if she took no unnecessary risks. The decision was an easy one to make and Silbhé took leave as well; with her and Loki moving back to Salani manor in Maine. Where they'd state until Rose was born and old enough to be safe.

And just like that, Skye and Melinda were all that was left of the Caterpillars. With six months still to go before Peter and Gwen could join them, Skye had begun to believe that they'd have to scratch the team as a whole, when her parents had a serious talk to her.

After three kidnap attempts on Kathryn Adler, Director Fury had decided something needed to be done. Apparently their refusal to discuss how the Sphinx had gone from 'presumed dead' to 'perfectly alive' had pushed some people into believing that SHIELD, or at least Fury, had a way to bring back the dead. They intended to kidnap Kathryn to prove it. So Fury needed to keep her safe, without making it obvious.

The plan was made. A new team would be formed, tasked with the mission of recovering all that had been left behind after the battles against the chitauri. Biological remains, tech, everything, it was simply too dangerous to be left in the hands of the unknowing, or worse, possible HYDRA-hopefuls. The mission was officially given to Kathryn Adler (it was the excuse to keep her away from SHIELD bases and on the move), with Phil Coulson as her second. Melinda would be their pilot, as well as Kathryn's bodyguard. Skye was a field-agent, and they all knew her gifts might prove useful. FitzSimmons had asked for a chance to join, a request which had been approved. Still, it was decided that another field agent was needed. No one knew for sure how it happened, but John Garrett heard about the team being formed and pushed forth the name of one of his subordinates as a candidate, the man? Grant Ward.

And so the new team came to be, the new mission began.

The team chose China for their first stop as they went on their new mission, as it was a place they already knew and it was a safe and controlled environment to allow FitzSimmons and Agent Ward to get used to their new duties. At first it'd seemed like Ward might have trouble adapting to the change in duties; since he'd been a specialist, and the one who favored solo ops too. And yet he fit very well with the team, soon he was training with Skye and sometimes Melinda in the mornings, teasing FitzSimmons about their crazy antics and even their relationship (which was supposed to be a secret, so of course everyone knew by the end of the first week), he would also play battleship with Skye (he could never win, no matter how hard he tried).

The visit also allowed Skye to visit with those whom a part of her still saw as her people (and she knew that, were it to ever become necessary, she would protect them as such). It allowed FitzSimmons and Ward to realize where Skye's gift came from, and they all accepted her without reservations; something she was deeply thankful for.

They were leaving when Raina approached her unexpectedly.

"What is it?" Skye inquired, she didn't even need to look at the older Inhuman to know there was something she really wanted to say.

"The day you've been both expecting and dreading is coming." Raina stated without delay. "You know what it is I speak of."

"I know." Skye nodded quietly, unable to keep her eyes from straying in the direction of a certain someone, standing by the ramp into the Zephyr One. "Will he be alright?"

"You worry for his life but not yours?" Raina asked, though they both already knew the answer, still, it needed to be said.

"He's my life." Skye stated without hesitation.

"Then know that when the time comes, when you feel like you're about to drown, all you need to do is call out, your plea will be answered."

Raina didn't say anymore, nor did she give a chance for Skye to make any questions, request any sort of clarification, she had already turned around and was walking away by the time the words had fully registered in the mind of one at least some of the Inhumans still saw as their rightful ruler, their Queen.

Raina stood beside Lincoln as they both watched the Zephyr One rise. Neither of them said a word as the vessel took to the air and soon enough disappeared in the distance. It was until a little while afterwards, when most of the Inhumans still living in Afterlife had returned to their duties, that the blonde finally turned to look at the woman by his side, with her face, head and arms covered in fine thorns.

"Will you tell me now?" He asked her, intrigue coloring his voice. "Why all the mystery? All the rhymes and the cryptic messages? Your gift is to see the future, but until a few months ago I've never known you to use metaphors to pass on your messages."

"That's because I don't need such methods to do so." Raina answered honestly. "My visions are pretty straight-forward, at least as long as I can recognize the things I'm seeing. I don't always know the people, or even the places, but that's why we have people to help us. This case... this is different. It needed to be handled with a more... delicate hand, so-to-speak."

"Why?" He still didn't understand. "If you know of trouble coming Skye's way, why not just tell her and be done with it?"

"Because if I tell her, she just might end up provoking things, either that or something much worse..." Raina revealed in a whisper. "It's like with Skye's sister, the one they call Nightingale. My second vision ever, after the one I had about Skye, and about the shared pieces of our destiny, was about her... such a wondrous creature she is..."

"Creature...?" Lincoln knew her choice of word was important.

"She's not human, not really." Raina explained. "Humanity is just s shell or... a cocoon... how fitting, the name their team has chosen. They all are, in their own ways, caterpillars, waiting for the right moment to become who they're truly meant to be. Nightingale is one such case, I've known that almost from the start... I saw her, her husband, her daughters... such an amazing family. Yet even now, she's just beginning to tap into that. There's so much more to come her way, pain and joy both, and so much love..."

"And about Skye?"

"She has her own destiny to fulfill." She looked at the man by her side as smiled at him. "I know there have been times when you've doubted. Our position, her choice, the whole line of events that brought us to where we are, but believe me when I tell you we're each of us where we're supposed to be..."

"I believe you." He assured her immediately. "I trust you."

"I know you do. And back to Skye... It's my duty as her angel, as both messenger and protector, to keep her and those she holds in her heart, safe. I knew telling her things outright wouldn't be right, not in this way. But in this manner... she'll know what to do, when the time comes."

"And then?"

"And then it'll be out of our hands..."

She said that, and even then, Raina couldn't help herself, she had to make sure. She'd spent the past nine months exploring all possibilities, calculating all possible outcomes, before imparting the messages she decided would allow for the best possible solution to what was coming. The final one had been imparted that day, and as she acknowledged that, she allowed her gift to fixate on Skye and push her mind forth, visions taking shape in the back of her mind:

 _Time passing, missions, the team growing closer, taking risks, saving lives..._

 _Stolen kisses and secret moments in the shadows, a love as passionate as it is dangerous..._

 _One night the lovers lay together on a bed that should be much too small for two people, and yet the ones on it seemed to either not notice or simply not care at all. He falls asleep, arms secure around her and shortly before succumbing herself, she begins to whisper words, something akin to a prayer she appears to have long memorized:_

" _I promise you that from this day on, you will be my only one. I shall look at no other the way I look at you, I shall think of no other the way I think about you, I shall talk to no other the way I talk to you, I shall desire no other the way I desire you, and I shall lay with no other the way I lay with you. I shall be with no other for you are now and forever shall be my one and only; my friend, my lover, my partner, my match…"_

 _The fated message appears in screens all around the world: "Out of the Shadows and Into the Light. Hydra" Some expect it to be a massacre, yet it's anything but. Instead it's a war. SHIELD is ready, they've known for years the confrontation was coming, ever since some of their own first tried to have the Sphinx killed; if all goes well, they hope it'll be the last time Hydra will be able to threaten the world._

 _One betrayal that hurts more than any other. A man turning his back on the team that had become a family over the past few months. And it's only made worse when a girl decides to follow him, seemingly choosing him above SHIELD, her friends and her own family. No one except her missing family knowing the truth, the work he's been doing for years, as a double-agent. Her own turning hadn't been planned, but it's also not completely unexpected, they all knew she how much she loved him._

 _One battle, in many ways more terrible and vicious than any before. Decisions are made, sides are chosen, sacrifices made..._

 _An agent, former mentor, traitor, points a gun at a girl, threatening her life, upon finding out her true allegiances, she refuses to back down._

 _A shot rings out, and yet the bullet doesn't hit her, instead it hits him. Him... her partner, her lover, her match..._

" _GRANT!" Her voice screams, as the earth shakes and screams along with her._

 _It's too late for the traitor then, no time to shoot again, not even to run, as the Inhuman Queen unleashes the full force of her fury on him, his body tearing itself apart without him able to do anything to stop it, or even plea for a mercy that will never come._

 _Then she's kneeling beside the man, the bullet still in his stomach, blood pulling beneath them both. She doesn't care, all she wants to do is find a way to save him, no matter the cost._

" _I love you..." He whispers through blood tinted lips._

 _It's the first time those words have ever left his lips, he'd never dared say them before; and in that moment she knows that without a miracle they will never get the chance to live their love the way they deserve too, out of the shadows, in the light. And then, it's an instinct, as chocolate eyes turn to the sky and a voice calls out loud and clear:_

" _Sister!"_

Back in China, in the present, Raina smiled. It was done.

* * *

So I went more into the whole Hydra did than I ever planned... especially considering I have yet to get into that in the main timeline, but I suppose it just couldn't be helped.

The ending... I'm not even sure what I think about it, but after weeks of trying to work it out, this is what I came up with, and I liked it. I still had a couple more ideas, but they didn't quite fit. I think it turned out well enough anyway, I hope you'll think the same.

If there's something concerning the Skyeward pairing you'd like to see in the main timeline, let me know. You're still on time.

Plans right now are to write one, possibly two more AUs for this set, then I'm tackling the next part of the main series. Tentative title right now is 'Fate and Destiny' and that story will be much longer than Nexus, possibly even longer than Nightingale, it'll focus on the events of Captain America, and a few other things that have been building up. I hope to be well into that before CA3 comes out.

For those who might not know, an original work of mine is right now on Inkitt. org, participating on the contest Dreamlands, first place gets a publishing offer. I hope some of you might go read my story, it's called "Krystel - Book 1: Blue", leave a review and, hopefully, vote for me. I live for writing, and this might help me get a good start on publishing in English (I have a novel in Spanish, though the sales aren't going as well as I'd hoped). Anyway, thank you in advance to all who might pop over there.

Constructive criticism is, as always, very welcome. I hope you've enjoyed this.

See ya around!


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